Central American Migrants Found Traversing Mexico in Trucks
Over 200 migrants heading for the US-Mexican border were rescued in Mexico in two unrelated cases in Tabasco and Zacatecas on October 16. In both cases, Central American migrants were found riding in the back of modified trailers heading for Tamaulipas and Coahuila, respectively, states in the eastern border region. These instances are among a larger crackdown on human trafficking and undocumented immigration of Central American migrants by the Mexican government. The crackdown began in 2014 amid a new wave of American immigration rhetoric.
A study by the Pew Research Center using data gathered by the United States Border Patrol found that, in 2014, the number of non-Mexican Central American migrants had surpassed the number of Mexican migrants apprehended at the border. The majority of these migrants are from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala and are fleeing ongoing violence in these countries. This change coincided with a large influx of funding from the U.S. government to Mexico for the purpose of fortifying its own southern border to prevent migrants from making it to the Texas border. As a result, Mexico has a far higher rate of deportation than the United States and presents a precarious situation for refugees and asylum seekers.
Early on the morning of October 16, Federal Police intercepted a trailer traveling on the Zacatecas-Saltillo Highway around the town of Carneros en route to northern Coahuila. After conducting an investigation of the vehicle, the police unit found over 157 migrants riding in the modified freight container, 40 of whom were minors. The Federal Police sent the migrants to holding centers administered by the National Institute of Migration (INM) and detained the 56-year-old driver of the trailer to try him for human trafficking violations through the Public Ministry of the Federation.
Later that same day, an anonymous tip was sent to the Agency for Criminal Investigation with the route of a trailer carrying a large number of migrants in the southern state of Tabasco on the Villahermosa-Cardenas Highway. Police found 123 migrants—53 of them minors—some with signs of dehydration, in the freight box of a trailer; they are now under the protection of INM at a processing center in Reynosa, Tamaulipas—the northern state that the migrants were attempting to reach.
The migrants in both cases have mainly been Guatemalan, Honduran, and Salvadoran. The INM has released official numbers showing that the migrants from the Zacatecas incident were composed of 92 Hondurans, 62 Guatemalans, and three Salvadorans. The attorney general put out a statement declaring that the INM will process the migrants with full respect to their human rights. However, many migrant advocacy groups have previously been critical of the Mexican response to the influx of Central American migrants. According to a study conducted by migrant advocacy groups, only 49 of the 5,824 reported crimes against migrants from 2014 to 2016 resulted in a sentence; only 460 of the 119,714 Central American migrants who applied for refugee status in Mexico in 2014 received it, and Mexico deported 77 of every 100 unaccompanied minors apprehended in 2014. The incoming administration has also given a lukewarm response, with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promising work visas to a caravan of 3,000 Honduran migrants, while others in his administration have threatened to deport anyone entering the country without legal documentation.