Three hundred U.S.-bound Central Americans migrants, including dozens of children, were found over the weekend inside trucks in Mexico without proper ventilation or enough food or water, local officials said.
Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, known as INM, informed that 198 migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were found Saturday morning inside a truck as they were being transported in the state of Tamaulipas, border with Texas.
“They were traveling in overcrowding conditions,” said the INM.
Of the 198 foreign nationals found inside the truck, 76 came from Guatemala, 103 from Honduras and 19 from El Salvador. There were 80 men, 39 women, 40 boys and 39 girls. Of the minors, 55 were traveling with their parents while 24 were unaccompanied
Three people were arrested suspected of human trafficking.
On Friday, officials found another truck with 102 Central Americas with signs of dehydration and asphyxia.
On Monday, President Donald Trump renewed his calls for his promised wall with Mexico, saying on Twitter “Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time.”
Congress has until March 5th to reach an agreement on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects thousands of young people who were brought to the U.S. when they were minors by their undocumented parents.
Thousands of Honduran and Salvadorian immigrants currently live and work legally in the U.S. under a Temporary Protected Status, but that designation is set to expire next year in the case of Salvadorians, while a decision on Hondurans is still pending.
The Department of Homeland Security determined in January that El Salvador no longer meets a TPS designation on the basis of an environmental disaster. El Salvador’s TPS designation will end on Sept. 9, 2019. Honduras’s TPS is good until July 5, when the DHS will decide whether to extend, redesign or terminate their protection.
The route followed by the trucks, from Ciudad Victoria to Linares, is popular among human traffickers that avoid police controls on their way to the bordering state of Tamaulipas