The National Migration Institute (INM) of Mexico identified this Thursday 350 migrants from Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras and El Salvador crowded and dehydrated in the box of a trailer, as reported by the agency in a statement.
The agency reported that at a toll booth between the municipalities of Córdoba and Coatzacoalcos, in the eastern state of Veracruz, agents stopped the driver of said cargo transport and detected, using gamma rays, the presence of people inside the toll booth. box.
INM personnel and security elements heard screams and bangs, so they opened the back door and, when they opened it, the migrants removed a screen that prevented them from getting air.
“In a security zone, the immigration authority identified 350 foreigners who could not prove their regular stay in the country: 340 from Guatemala, six from Ecuador, three from Honduras and one from El Salvador,” the INM indicated.
Minors and those who made up family units will remain under the guardianship of the local System for the Comprehensive Development of the Family (DIF). While the authorities took the adults to an INM headquarters in the state to begin the procedure to define their immigration status in Mexico, the agency said.
The discovery of overcrowded migrants reflects the rebound in the migratory flow through Mexico after the initial drop caused by the expiration of Title 42 of the United States in May, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged last month.
In recent weeks, Mexico has registered the arrival of migrants from practically all regions of the world, mainly Central and South America, which shows the unprecedented migratory flow, with more than 2.76 million undocumented migrants intercepted by the United States at the border in the fiscal year 2022.
After the end of Title 42, the US Government applies Title 8, which increases penalties for those who cross the border illegally.
