The migrants initially arrived as “tourists” to move to the resort of Cancun, in the neighboring state of Quintana Roo, and from there seek to reach the United States to fulfill the so-called “American Dream”.
“They arrive in groups of 30, 40 and even more than 80 people, aboard trailers, vans or tourist buses,” revealed to EFE an agent of the Public Security Secretariat, who preferred anonymity and participated in one of the “finds” of migrants registered in the last three months.
“In the first find we found 35 migrants from India who were inside a trailer parked in a boarding house on the Merida-Uman highway, south of Yucatan.”
It should be noted that the location of the migrants has not been fortuitous, it occurred due to calls made to 911 made by local inhabitants who were surprised to see foreigners in the municipalities of Yucatan, such as Umán and Holactún.
“We receive the calls and we go together with the National Guard and the municipal police,” explained the agent, who after verifying that they are foreigners refer the cases to the National Migration Institute (INM) in Merida.
In this regard, the commissioner of the INM, Carmen Yadira de los Santos, confirmed in a press conference that citizens from India, Brazil, Vietnam and Central American countries arrive in the state of Yucatán “as a dynamic of migratory flows”.
The official added that “they are looking for new routes to achieve their goal”, however she did not specify if their objective is only to reach Cancun or to go to the United States, where thousands of migrants seek to arrive daily, and said that these arrivals are becoming more and more common in the south and southeast of Mexico.
According to information from the SSP, the figure is almost 500 migrants who have been stopped in Yucatan communities in the last three months, but there are only 237 people detained, “whom we attended depending on nationality and immigration status”.
“There were no deportations, we proceeded according to the individual situation and returned them to the southern border of Mexico, which borders Guatemala,” he assured.
So far no details were given about the drivers of the vehicles that were detained, nor about the minors located, who are transferred to the National System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF).
Massive arrival of foreigners in Yucatan
The discovery of migrants in the last few weeks has caught the attention of the inhabitants of southern Yucatan, who reported that some nights they hear the passing of trailers and other cargo vehicles which “did not pass so often before”.
The first report registered at the end of March was a key piece for the investigation: first for the arrival of the migrants from India who arrived in a trailer in Umán and were discovered when they were getting on board a van to continue their journey to Cancún.
After that finding, there were other cases in April, in which migrants from Vietnam were found. On April 24, a total of 16 men, 16 women and 10 minors from Brazil were detained on the Campeche-Merida highway.
Agents from the Secretaría de Seguridad Pública y Caminos Peninsular found a van with license plates from the State of Mexico in Maxcanú in which the 42 people were crammed together.
Meanwhile, on April 15, 82 migrants from India (56), Guatemala (24) and El Salvador (2) were found in Holactún, municipality of Seyé, and did not prove their legal entry into the country. The case, according to the inhabitants themselves, was “like a movie” since they first “caught” 56 immigrants hiding in the area of the municipal garbage dump and then, with the help of drones, they found the rest who went into the mountains.
The most recent discovery was that of a group of 12 Brazilians, which took place in the early hours of May 4.
TYT Newsroom
