Mexican immigration authorities rescued over 100 Central American migrants who were left to die in a truck trailer. The 55 children and 48 adults were left without food or water for two days, according to reports. Immigration agents also found 88 additional migrants packed into a bus with a seating capacity of only 42.
Immigration authorities in Mexico said they found 103 migrants “packed into a truck in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz,” the Associated Press reported. Officials said the 55 minors and 48 adults were left without food or water for two days. It is also likely there were no bathroom facilities for the migrants to use while trapped inside the refrigerated trailer. The immigration officials made the discovery in the Gulf state of Veracruz.
The migrants can be seen huddling in cold conditions inside the trailer in the photo provided by the National Immigration Institute in Mexico. All but one originated from Guatemala and 55 were reported to be minors.
Elsewhere, Mexican immigration officials found 88 more from Guatemala in an overcrowded bus in the north-central state of Hidalgo. The bus had a seating capacity for 42 people, officials stated. Forty-five of the 88 migrants were reported to be children accompanied by their relatives.
These discoveries are not uncommon in Mexico as tens of thousands of Central American migrants make their way across the country destined for the U.S. Border.
In February, the National Immigration Institute reported the rescue of 40 Hondurans locked inside a cargo truck in Veracruz. The immigration agents found the truck traveling on a “little-traveled road.” Officials said the migrants were suffering signs of dehydration and suffocation as the truck was poorly ventilated.
The agents provided food and water to the “girls, children, and adults” who said they had left Honduras and expected to be delivered to the U.S. Border where they planned to cross.
Also in February, Mexican immigration agents found 103 migrants just south of the Texas-Mexico Border. Agents found the 36 minors and 65 adults abandoned in a trailer in the border town of Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas, just south of Rio Grande City, Texas. A military patrol heard the migrants banging on the walls of the trailer. The migrants included unaccompanied children and families from Honduras (91), Guatemala (7), and El Salvador (5).
The arrests of unaccompanied minors and children traveling with only one parent or guardian skyrocketed in March and approached levels not seen since the Obama Administration in 2013 and 2014, Breitbart Texas reported earlier this month. Officials reported a 203 percent increase in March when compared to March 2017.
Border Patrol agents arrested nearly 38,000 during March 2017. Of those, 4,171 were Unaccompanied Alien Children and 8,882 were Family Unit Aliens.
“The crisis at our Southwest border is real,” Department of Homeland Security Press Secretary Tyler Q. Houlton said in a written statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “The number of illegal border crossings during the month of March shows an urgent need to address the ongoing situation at the border. We saw a 203 percent increase from March 2017 compared to March 2018 and a 37 percent increase from last month to this month – the largest increase from month to month since 2011.”
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas, Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera (in his capacity as vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307) described the impact of this surge of unaccompanied minors and families on border security.
“We have the buildings to handle the influx of these people,” Cabrera explained, “but we don’t have the manpower. The influx is causing agents to be taken off the front line to assist with processing the families and unaccompanied minors. This leads to gaps in security and not enough agents to back each other up in the field.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, GAB, and Facebook.
(Disclosure: Breitbart Texas sponsored the Green Line podcast for the NBPC in an effort to provide a platform for agents to inform the public about the realities on the border and what Border Patrol agents face. Director Brandon Darby received an award from the Laredo chapter of the NBPC for his work in helping to defend and bring a voice to Border Patrol agents. Breitbart News assisted in covering funeral costs for a slain Border Patrol agent previously.)
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