A total of 53 Central American and Cuban migrants were found when they were traveling in a cargo vehicle, overcrowded and without ventilation, in the state of Tabasco, southeastern Mexico, including two minor women, reported Monday the National Migration Institute (INM).
In a statement, the INM, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, indicated that the migrants came from Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba and El Salvador and noted that both the driver and his companion and the vehicle were made available to the Attorney General’s Office. the Republic (FGR).
He reported that the vehicle was located at the immigration checkpoint ‘La Venta’, during an inspection in which agents from the Secretary of National Defense, National Guard and the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection of the state of Tabasco participated.
The INM specified that in the finding they counted 51 adults (14 women and 37 men), in addition to the two minor women. By country there were 18 men and 12 women from Nicaragua; 2 minors, 1 woman and 12 adult men from Guatemala; 2 men from Honduras, in addition to 5 men from Cuba and 1 more from El Salvador.
The report indicated that the adults were presented to the INM authorities in the city of Villahermosa, capital of the state of Tabasco, to carry out the corresponding immigration procedures, while the two minors were informed to the System for the Integral Development of the Family and the State Attorney for the Defense of Minors.
Traveling crammed into trucks is one of the most dangerous ways migrants use to clandestinely cross Mexico on their way to the United States, something for which they pay traffickers thousands of dollars.
Under this modality, a tragic accident was recorded on December 9, 2021, when a trailer overturned on the highway from Tuxtla Gutiérrez to Chiapa de Corzo, in the state of Chiapas, in which 56 migrants died.
More than 160 foreigners were traveling hidden in the vehicle, most of them from Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.
Mexico’s INM recently reported that between January 1 and April 13 of this year it intercepted 115,379 migrants, of which 15% were minors, mainly from Central American nations.
While in fiscal year 2022, which began on October 1, 2021, 1,060,094 migrant encounters have already been recorded on the southern US border, according to data from the Customs and Border Protection Office.