A total of 266 migrants, mostly Central Americans, were found when they were transported in 3 trailers and circulated on a highway in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, in the north of the country, the National Guard reported Tuesday.
The security body reported in a statement that the finding was recorded in the municipality of Galeana, in the south of the state, at kilometer 93 of the Linares-San Roberto highway, Puerto El Tokio.
In addition, he specified that of the 266 migrants, 80 are from Guatemala, 78 from Nicaragua, 48 from El Salvador, 26 from Cuba, 19 from Honduras, 13 from Ecuador and 2 from the Dominican Republic. “They were traveling aboard three tractor-trailers,” the National Guard briefly explained in the note.
He reported that the drivers, as well as the insured vehicles, were made available to the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), based in the municipality of Linares.
Meanwhile, the migrants were transferred by the National Migration Institute (INM) to its facilities in the municipality of Guadalupe, a suburb of Monterrey, to determine their immigration status.
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#Release ?| identify @INAMI_mx 266 foreign migrants crammed into double bottoms of three tractor-trailers. ➡️ https://t.co/f6jU0uqxMg pic.twitter.com/KCLt1mtAbR
– Government (@SEGOB_mx) September 7, 2022
Traveling crammed into trailers is one of the most dangerous ways migrants use to clandestinely cross Mexico to the United States, something for which they pay traffickers thousands of dollars.
Under this modality, on December 9, 2021, a tragic accident was recorded, when a trailer overturned on the highway from Tuxtla Gutiérrez to Chiapa de Corzo, in the state of Chiapas, in which 56 migrants died.
Related news: The number of migrants killed while trying to cross the Rio Grande rises to nine
Human smugglers seek out routes for foreigners, sometimes stationing themselves in the southern and northern states of the country as a stopover on their way to the US.
The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has intercepted more than 1.7 million people so far in fiscal year 2022, which began last October.
In addition, Mexico received a record of more than 58,000 refugee applications in the first half of 2022, an annual increase of almost 15%, according to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar).
