148 Migrants found inside abandoned trailer in Mexico
Mexico City, Jul 21 (EFE).- A trailer holding 148 undocumented migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala was discovered Friday in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, Mexico’s INM immigration service said.
Agents “rescued 148 migrant persons who traveled packed into the container of a trailer and were abandoned – in life-threatening conditions – alongside the Minatitlan-Cordoba highway,” the INM said in a statement.
The group includes 44 families comprising 115 individuals, 10 adults traveling alone, and 23 unaccompanied minors.
INM personnel performed health checks on all of the migrants and provided assistance to those who needed it.
While the single adults were taken to an INM office to apply for asylum or transit visas, family and children’s services took charge of the families and unaccompanied minors pending the processing of their applications.
Federal authorities impounded the vehicle.
The vast majority of migrants who cross into Mexico from Central America are trying to reach the United States and Washington’s efforts to discourage people from making the difficult and dangerous journey have had limited impact.
US immigration authorities intercepted more than 2.76 million undocumented migrants on the southern border during the 12 months that ended on Sept. 30, 2022.
And the number of “people in an irregular situation” detected in Mexico climbed 43 percent last year to nearly 445,000.
Over the course of three years, US officials used a provision of a decades-old public law to summarily deport 2.8 million asylum-seekers on the grounds that their entry could accelerate the spread of Covid-19.
But with the official end of the pandemic health emergency in May, the asylum process reverted to being regulated by Title 8 of US immigration law, under which asylum applicants who are turned down can face not only deportation, but years-long bans on trying again.
EFE ia/dr
