VERACRUZ – Mexican soldiers detained 80 undocumented Central Americans in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and arrested a trafficker, authorities said.
The operation against the immigrants was carried out Jan. 29 in the port of Coatzacoalcos, according to officials of the Veracruz state police.
The soldiers coordinated with police in searching a home where security forces found 80 undocumented immigrants, 62 men and 18 women, coming from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Authorities also nabbed a people-trafficker, who was handed over to federal prosecutors, as well as a minor who had been given the task of feeding the Central Americans.
The soldiers, who seized three vehicles at the dwelling, took the group of undocumented migrants to the National Migration Institute, an organization that will repatriate them to their countries of origin.
Mexico is a transit route for hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central and South Americans who yearly travel north across the country in hopes of attaining better living conditions in the United States.
–EFE
