Mexico City, June 6: Mexican armed forces, migration officials and soldiers have blocked hundreds of migrants when found illegally crossing the southern Mexican border from Guatemala in a caravan on Wednesday, and arrested dozens of barred migrants, according to a witness from an aid group and an official.
According to Reuters news reports, the Mexican action in Metapa, the border town, marked the tightening of the government’s efforts to put an end to migration flow mainly from Central American, a coordinator with Fray Matias de Cordova, Salva Cruz said.
“That many sailors and military police, yes, it’s new,” Cruz said. Many migrants have fled poverty and violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras seeking asylum.
The operation took in Chiapas was coincided with a high-level delegation meeting between the Mexican and the United States officials on Wednesday at the White House to reach an agreement on the immigration issue that would prevent the imposition of tariffs on Mexican exports threatened by President Donald Trump last week.
In a statement, the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM) said a group of around 300 people tried entering Mexico by crossing its southern border bridge on Wednesday morning, including another 120 migrants joining the group as they entered Tapachula city. The INM said the migrants agreed to be carried by convoy to a migrant office.
On Wednesday, security forces arrested US-Mexico migrant aid group Pueblo Sin Fronteras director Irineo Mujica and a migrant rights activists, Cristobal Sanchez, as per a coordinator with the group, Alex Mensing.