The first place many migrants sleep after entering Mexico from Guatemala is inside a large structure, a roof above, and fenced-in sides on a rural ranch. They call it the “chicken coop” and they don’t get to leave until they pay the cartel that runs it.
(AP).- Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached a four-year low, but days before the U.S. election, in which immigration is a key issue, migrants continue pouring into Mexico.
While U.S. authorities give much of the credit to their Mexican counterparts for stemming the flow to their shared border, organized crime maintains stricter control of who moves here than the handful of federal agents and National Guardsmen standing by the river.
Kidnapped migrants who pay the $100 ransom for their release are stamped to signal that they have paid. From January to August, just in this southernmost corner of Mexico, more than 150,000 migrants were intercepted by immigration agents, considered a fraction of the flow.
Six migrant families interviewed by The Associated Press, who had passed through an initial abduction and were held until paying, explained how it works. A Mexican federal official corroborated much of it. They all requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Mexican immigration agents encountered 925,000 undocumented migrants through August of this year, well above last year’s annual total and triple the 2021 total. Yet, they’ve only deported 16,500, a fraction of previous years.
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