Members of the Mexican State Civil Guard detained more than 100 migrants, most of them Cubans, who were abandoned by coyotes in two hotels in the municipality of Soledad, in the state of San Luis Potosí.
“The group waited for nightfall to continue on their way to the United States,” one of the guides assured the clerk of a store where they bought water, ham and bread. The trade is located meters from one of the hotels.
contacted by 14ymedio, the clerk, who identified himself as Josué, pointed out that, between Saturday night and early Monday morning, several vans “of Cubans” entered the California hotel. The establishment is located four minutes from Federal Highway 57, one of the routes used by coyote networks for migrant smuggling, As noted last May Miguel Gallegos, head of the State Security Spokesperson.
Josué specified that several Central Americans, most of them men, who stayed at the Hotel España, also got off a cattle truck on Monday. “I know because one of them came into the store and asked me if I accepted quetzales, that’s when I found out that he was from Guatemala and that others came from Honduras and Ecuador,” he clarified.
“I can’t give you precise numbers, but several groups of between 40 or 60 people a day pass through the municipality. Some stay, others are escorted, like the Cubans,” Josué explained.
Gallegos pointed out that, given the increase in checkpoints on highways, smugglers they began to use alternative routes and the state administration tries to cover the “gaps” used by human traffickers to travel to the US border.
This Tuesday the governor of San Luis Potosí, Ricardo Gallardo Carmona, addressed the immigration issue and reported that the authorities “rescued” more than 100 undocumented immigrants, almost all of Cuban origin, but he wondered how they managed to reach half of their road without any authority having intercepted them.
From San Luis Potosí, migrants can take the route that takes them to the state of Coahuila and seek to cross the Rio Grande through Ciudad Acuña or Piedras Negras. The crossings through Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo are another alternative, but they are controlled by drug dealers. Several Cubans have denounced in 14ymedio that the Gulf Cartel uses keys and colored bracelets for the passage of migrants, this depends on the payment they make for the transfer.
According to the authorities of San Luis Potosí, the National Migration Institute will be in charge of the corresponding procedures for the repatriation of irregular migrants.
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