MEXICO CITY.- The authorities of Mexico They are investigating the discovery of a group of 726 migrants, mostly from Central America, in a warehouse located in Cuaxomulco, a municipality in the central state of Tlaxcala.
The discovery was made by members of the Army and the National Guard, according to the National Migration Institute (INM) in a statement issued the day before. Among the migrants, citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Ecuador were identified, with the particularity that 75 of them were unaccompanied minors.
During the operation, four alleged traffickers who were guarding the warehouse were arrested.
This discovery occurs amid a decrease in irregular migrant crossings into the United States, which have dropped to a few thousand this month, in contrast to the strong rebound recorded at the end of last year, when up to 10,000 were reported. daily crossings.
The Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, Alexander Mayorkasadmitted last week that it is still early to determine whether the decrease in irregular crossings is due to the reactivation of migrant transfer operations in Mexico, or if it is simply a seasonal variation.
With more than 3,000 km of border with the United States, Mexico is a transit and retention country for migrants, mainly from Central American countries plagued by violence or poverty (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador), the Caribbean (Haiti, Cuba) or Venezuela, which clash with the restrictive policies of the United States.
Migrations to the United States reached a record number last year. According to the US Border Patrol, between October 2022 and September 2023, 2.4 million migrant entries were recorded across the southern border of the United States, a record.
The US-Mexico border was the “most dangerous land migratory route in the world” in 2022, with 686 dead or missing, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published in September.
Source: With information from AP and AFP
