A tractor trailer packed with 103 migrants from Central America has been found abandoned in Mexico near the US border.
Mexican officials said on Friday that a military patrol had discovered the group of migrants pounding on the walls of the trailer in Cuidad Camargo, just across the border from Rio Grande City, Texas.
The migrants said they had been locked in the trailer for about 12 hours, apparently abandoned by human smugglers in a failed attempt to enter the US illegally.
The group, which included 36 minors, consisted of 91 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and five Salvadorans.
A tractor trailer packed with 103 migrants from Central America was found in in Cuidad Camargo, just across the border from Rio Grande City, Texas
The group, which included 36 minors, consisted of 91 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and five Salvadorans. The migrants said they had been locked in the trailer for about 12 hours
The trailer was found near a smuggling route into the US, very close to the border
Mexican Army officials contacted the country’s National Immigration Institute, which assisted in treating the migrants for dehydration and feeding them.
That agency said in a statement that it had ‘communicated immediately with the Consulates of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to carry out a dignified, orderly and safe return for the migrants.’
The Mexican federal agency added that it ‘reaffirms its commitment to safeguard the physical integrity of migrants and respect their human rights in their transit through national territory regardless of their migratory status.’
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Mexican government must do more to stop violent illegal immigrants from Central America from entering the US through Mexico.
The migrants are seen under guard by the Mexican Army awaiting humanitarian assistance
Officials with the National Immigration Institute fed the migrants and treated them for dehydration. Their home consulates have been contacted for their return
‘MS-13 gang members are being removed by our Great ICE and Border Patrol Agents by the thousands, but these killers come back in from El Salvador, and through Mexico , like water,’ the president tweeted.
‘El Salvador just takes our money, and Mexico must help MORE with this problem. We need The Wall!’
More than 800 Central American migrants have been found in truck trailers or safe houses in Mexico so far this year, according to a government document reported by Reuters.
In July, 10 people died after a truck stuffed with more than 100 Guatemalan and Mexican migrants was abandoned in a Texas parking lot.