A raid to arrest drug sellers in the Iztapalapa mayor’s office, one of the most violent in Mexico City, exposed migrant smuggling, according to data provided by the capital’s Attorney General’s Office. This Monday, 26 people of Cuban, Nicaraguan and Honduran origin were “rescued” and handed over to Migration.
The San Juan Xalpa neighborhood is among the areas with the highest reports of theft, extortion and abuse, which is why raids are common, he tells 14ymedio Officer Efrén, assigned to the Investigative Police. “The drug dealers are connecting with the smugglers to hide undocumented immigrants. If these people circumvented the checkpoints, they surely found new routes.”
The irregular migrants, 21 men, four women and one minor, were at a home in the Vikingos Housing Unit, where the police agents arrived in search of drugs. “Small plastic bags with marijuana” and others with white powder were found at the scene, which were seized.
The housing unit where the Cubans were hidden is located twenty minutes from the federal highway, which connects central Mexico with the state of Puebla.
The National Migration Institute confirmed to this newspaper the opening of an investigation folder. “The crime of migrant trafficking was reported to us, but there were no arrests,” said a source. “Many of these homes are rented, which makes it difficult to locate those directly responsible.”
The housing unit where the Cubans were hidden is located twenty minutes from the federal highway, which connects central Mexico with the state of Puebla. In this region, “in the last week, 142 people were arrested, 37 of them with false documents and 22 Central Americans who had already been expelled,” says the immigration officer. last sunday too 42 foreigners were arrested at the local bus terminal.
TO the 277 Cubans detained between February 17 and 20 another 16 are added. “Ten were arrested in La Venta and Palenque, in Tabasco, a transit route that is exploited by the coyotes and complicities that are already being investigated,” underlines the INM official. “It is evident that something is wrong when you find 140 undocumented in a provincial hotel.
Migrating is not a crime, acknowledges the immigration officer, but insists that “conditions must be met so that this transit of people seeking to reach the United States is safe.”
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