Mezcalapa, (Mexico)
Members of the Mexican National Guard and the National Migration Institute (INM) this Saturday intercepted 156 Central American migrants traveling together in a “tractor trailer” on the federal highway of Chiapas, a southern border state.
Immigration authorities reported that 147 Guatemalans and nine Hondurans traveled in stacks, who were in a trailer attached to a redilas trailer in the municipality of Mezcalapa, which is located in the watershed of the Grijalva.
The operation, which officials called “rescue,” was conducted on the Las highway Choapas-Ocozocoautla, where the truck driver tried to avoid the officers when they asked him to stop, as described by the elements of the National Guard.
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Therefore, federal agents maneuvered to reach him meters away, where two people got out of the vehicle and fled eventually one of them was intercepted.
When officials approached the unit to conduct a security inspection, they heard help in the cargo area and saw dozens of people traveling in the cabin. people in busy circumstances.
The Central Americans showed signs of dehydration, but once they were supplied with water and received medical attention, the immigration officers transferred them to the INM facilities.
There they could receive consular assistance, but after proving their nationality, the authorities announced their deportation to their country in a process they call “assisted return”.
The detention of the Central Americans takes place the day the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced that in the virtual meeting with his American counterpart, Joe Biden, on Monday, he will raise an agreement so that workers can migrate to that place. North American. country of legal form.
“We’re going to address this issue. And it’s, Let’s see, you need Mexican and Central American workers to grow, to produce,” we can better organize the flow of migration and legalize it to guarantee the workers that they don’t risk their lives, that human rights are protected, ”he said.
Although López Obrador bragged about ‘a very good’ relationship with Donald Trump and was one of the last to congratulate Biden, the Mexican has applauded Washington’s new immigration policies such as the end of the border wall and the ‘Stay in Mexico’ program (Remain in Mexico).
The Mexican president has asked Washington for development cooperation in Central America and Southern Mexico, where he has deployed the National Guard, a military police force, to contain Central American migrants. after pressure from Trump.