The Mexican immigration authorities carried out operations in the state of Puebla, in the center of the country, one in a highway hotel and another in a transit bus, in which they found almost 700 migrants, including 150 minors, and detained at least four people for possible human trafficking.
The retention of overcrowded migrants in shelters, buses and trucks occurs frequently, but the Puebla rescue is possibly the largest so far this year.
The cases are called rescue and investigated as human trafficking due to the inhumane and exploitative conditions suffered by foreigners, at risk of life, with the case
of the death truck
in Texas.
[Two Mexican brothers die embracing in the Arizona desert after being abandoned by their coyote at the border]
An operation also carried out over the weekend but in northern Mexico found more than 120 people crowded into the trailer of a truck that was heading towards the border on a Coahuila highway.
A hotel full of undocumented immigrants
In a hotel named Conde del Aparador, on a highway near the city of Puebla, officers from different federal and state agencies found 567 foreigners during an "immigration verification" (including 110 minors: 32 girls and 78 boys), according to It was indicated in a statement, without giving more details of the operation.
Most came from Guatemala (475), but there were also immigrants from Honduras (40), El Salvador (35), Cuba (14), and Ecuador (3).
The images released by the authorities show a cluster of people being evicted from the hotel and then waiting outside to be processed in the middle of the night.
Four people remained at the disposal of the Attorney General's Office (FGR), it was indicated, "
for their probable responsibility for the crime of human trafficking
."
In addition, "the property was insured, as well as two trucks."
121 people on a bus near Puebla
The second action carried out in Puebla took place on the highway to Orizaba, near the town of San Bartolomé Hueyapan.
"A bus was located from which 121 foreigners transported irregularly were rescued," Mexico's National Migration Institute (INM) said in a statement.
Inside the bus were migrants from Nicaragua (40), Honduras (39), Guatemala (39), El Salvador (2) and Cuba (1);
including 22 male minors and 18 female minors.
The driver was brought to justice.
The INM, the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), the FGR, the National Guard and the State Police participated in the two operations in Puebla in a coordinated manner.
Puebla has been on the route of migrants to the US for years. In this image, a large group of families, mostly Hondurans, travel huddled together in the back of a truck towards the Mexican city.
GUILLERMO ARIAS / AFP via Getty Images
"In both cases, the unaccompanied minors and the family nuclei remained under the tutelage of the State System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF), while the adults were transferred to the institute's facilities to continue with their administrative immigration process," they said in a statement.
Trafficking of migrants in trucks
Immigration authorities also carried out another operation with state officials from Coahuila on the federal highway between Monclova and Piedras Negras.
The truck with migrants detected in Coahuila. National Institute of Migration Mexico
The agents searched a truck for immigration verification in which they found 127 migrants, mostly from Nicaragua, crammed into the trailer.
The driver was arrested.
Coyotes frequently use tractor-trailers to transport people through Mexico, and also once they are in the United States, in conditions that turn the trailer into a death trap.
On June 27, the bodies of migrants were found in a truck on a highway in San Antonio, Texas.
They traveled without water or food, crammed into extreme heat and covered in a condiment to outwit police dogs.
In total there were 73 people, including minors, enduring extreme temperatures.
It was the worst such tragedy in US history.
The driver, Homero Zamorano, 45, and another man were charged with conspiracy to illegally transport migrants.
The dead were identified as migrants from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, including two 13-year-old cousins who wanted "a better life" in the United States.
At the mercy of organized crime
70% of Central American migrants cross with the help of a coyote, according to authorities in Mexico.
However, costs vary depending on the country of origin.
Migrants who come from the northern triangle, that is, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, pay an average of around 4,559 dollars.
Mexicans pay a little more: $4,967 on average to cross into the United States.
Coyotes, organized crime, traffickers and assailants participate in this illegal traffic, who turn migrants into merchandise, warn the authorities.
They obtain economic revenue either because they use them as labor, sexually exploit them or assault and extort them.
