The Mexican military rescued 31 illegal immigrants that were being held against their will by cartel members in the southern Tamaulipas port city of Altamira.
The illegal immigrants came from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Cuba and were likely headed to the Texas border, but were being held in a stash house by cartel members, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government.
An anonymous tip led the Mexican military to the house where they arrested eight cartel members, five of whom were teenagers under 18-years-of age. Altamira is on the southern part of Tamaulipas but it is an area of great importance to drug cartels since it gives them access to the Gulf of Mexico and to highways that lead to the Texas border.
As Breitbart Texas previously reported, it is common for cartel members to hold illegal immigrants in stash houses throughout Mexico in order to get additional money from their families. During the summer of 2014, the Texas border made national headlines as thousands of illegal immigrants crossed the Rio Grande each week, rapidly overcrowding the local detention facilities and creating what became a humanitarian crisis, as Breitbart Texas reported.
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