Nearly 600 migrants from Central American countries but also from Africa and Asia were rescued in Mexico after being found traveling in two trucks, the National Immigration Institute (INM) said.
The immigrants -145 women and 455 men- were located in the State of Veracruz (southeast). Their origins are from neighboring Mexico with 401 of them from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, 37 from Bangladesh, 6 from Ghana, 2 from India and Cameroon, the announcement clarifies.
They were traveling “stacked” inside the containers of the two trucks, added the local head of the Human Rights Committee, Tonatio Hernandez, who had been sounding the alarm since Friday.
“There are children, minors, I saw pregnant women, I was sick,” Hernandez said, adding that he had never seen so many immigrants at the same time.
The child protection authorities will take care of “the cases of families or minors traveling alone”, clarified the INM, which has to decide on the “presence and living conditions” of these immigrants in Mexico.
“There are two options, either ‘assisted return’ or ‘the opportunity to stay (in Mexico) through legal procedures,'” the National Immigration Institute added.
Mexico, halfway between the poor countries of Central America and the United States, is facing the arrival of immigrants from other countries (Haiti, Cuba).
Two caravans of several hundred immigrants marched in the southern states of the country yesterday, demanding the legalization of undocumented immigrants.
Immigration flows have increased since Joe Biden took over the presidency of the United States on January 20 and promised more humane treatment of immigrants than his predecessor, Donald Trump.
More than 190,000 immigrants were counted by the Mexican authorities between January and September, a number three times higher than in 2020. About 74,300 people were deported.
The United States, for its part, recorded the record entry of 1.7 million people from Mexico into its territory from October 2020 to last September.
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