Of all the foreigners seeking to reach the border with the United States, eight are unaccompanied minors.
On the afternoon of March 19, the National Migration Institute (INM) reported the detention of 95 migrants in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, who tried to cross Mexico by plane,
According to the official gazette, there were 70 Hondurans, 14 Guatemalans, six Salvadorans and five Cubans, who were traveling as tourists on two commercial flights, one from Villahermosa, Tabasco, and the other from Cancun, Quintana Roo.
Of the 95 foreigners, eight are unaccompanied minors (four from Honduras, three from El Salvador, and one from Guatemala) and were left under the custody of the System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF) of Nuevo León, an instance that will also provide care and accommodation to 27 families made up of 72 migrants.
The 15 adults (three women and 12 men) were transferred to a state immigration station to initiate the corresponding administrative procedure that allows them to return to their respective countries of origin.
These arrests came a day after the deployment of hundreds of immigration agents and members of the Army and the National Guard (GN) on the southern border of Mexico to stop migrant smuggling, which will focus on detecting groups of families with minors who have entered irregularly.
The military and members of the INM carried out an operation in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, after the government announced that it will limit non-essential crossings from Guatemala to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
According to immigration authorities, human traffickers suggest that Central Americans travel with minors to facilitate entry to Mexico and the United States, which since Joe Biden took office, eliminated some of the anti-immigration measures imposed by his predecessor.
The INM reported that between January 1 and March 18, 2021, at least 4,180 migrant minors entered the country without legal authorization. In the first three months of 2020, 5,240 people were detected, and in the same period of 2019 there were more than 8,800.
So strong has been the deployment to stop the passage of migrants seeking to enter Mexico to stay or cross into the United States, that Mexican authorities have deployed operations along the most important migratory crossing points in the country, thereby that have stopped the access of several people.
For example, this Thursday, March 18, a group of 329 Central American migrants were found in Chiapas, a state that borders Guatemala. They were traveling in overcrowded conditions in the box of three cargo trucks.
115 foreigners were identified in the cargo compartment of a first truck; in the second, 111, and in the third, 103. Of these, 114 are unaccompanied girls and boys, five people in the family nucleus and 210 more adult women and men, the majority from Guatemala and the rest from Honduras, who do not they were able to verify their condition of regular stay in Mexico.
Members of the Beta Tuxtla Group, of the INM, provided water and food to unaccompanied migrant minors and people in the family nucleus, to later be under the protection of the DIF in the entity, an institution that will provide them with care and accommodation.
Source: INFOBAE
