Mexico sentences 5 Hondurans for kidnapping other migrants
July 9, 2021 GMT
MEXICO CITY (AP) A court in Mexico sentenced five Hondurans Friday for kidnapping at least 13 migrants in northern Mexico and demanding ransoms for their release.
The four Honduran men and one woman preyed on migrants from Honduras, Cuba and El Salvador, forcing them to call relatives in the United States to send ransom money. Their victims included a pregnant woman.
The five were each sentenced to 75 years in jail after they were found guilty in the 2019 abductions, according to Sonora state prosecutors.
They had demanded between $500 and $5,000 for each of the kidnap victims, all of whom were freed in a police raid in the northern border state of Sonora.
EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Immigration Agents Face Cartel Corruption Probe
Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images
25 May 2021
Agents and high-ranking officials with Mexico’s National Immigration Institute are now the subjects of a federal corruption probe, tying them to human smuggling and trafficking activities. Some have already been quietly removed from their positions without arrests.
The case involves some of the highest immigration officials in the border state of Nuevo Leon. Known as the INM, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute is the sole entity tasked with issuing travel documents and enforcing immigration laws. However, agents in key border cities and states are working with criminal organizations and cartels to help facilitate the smuggling of migrants into Mexico and to the United States. In some cases, like in Tamaulipas, INM agents turned over deported migrants to cartels so they could be smuggled again or extorted.
EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Immigration Office Turned Me Over to a Cartel, Says Migrant
21 Apr 2021
Mexican federal immigration agents turned a group of migrants over to one of the most violent cartels as part of a kidnapping and ransom scheme, a Honduran woman shared with Breitbart Texas.
The ordeal took place in early March in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo after “Teresa” and a dozen other Central Americans were deported by U.S. authorities to agents with Mexico’s National Immigration Institute. In a matter of hours, Teresa found herself turned over to the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas. The cartel has absolute control over Nuevo Laredo. CDN-Los Zetas even has convoys of gunmen in armored SUVs patrolling the city streets.
Business as usual: despite troop deployments migrants continue crossing southern border They face robbery, extortion and kidnapping, often at the hands of officials
Published on Wednesday, April 14, 2021
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Almost a month ago the federal government announced a temporary closure of the southern border to nonessential traffic. This week, the White House announced that Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala would deploy troops “to make crossing the borders more difficult.”
Yet migrants continue to stream into the country en route to the United States.
According to a report published Wednesday by
The Guardian, Central American migrants were crossing into Mexico on a recent morning at Frontera Corozal, a remote border town on the Usumacinta River in Chiapas, without having to show documents to anyone.
Mexico limits non-essential travel on southern border
Mexico is again under pressure to slow the flow of migrants north as the U.S. government wrestles with growing numbers. Author: MARÍA VERZA (Associated Press) Published: 9:28 PM EDT March 21, 2021 Updated: 9:28 PM EDT March 21, 2021
CIUDAD HIDALGO, Michoacán
Editor s note: The video above was published March 19, 2021.
The Mexican banks of the Suchiate river dawned Sunday with a heavy presence of immigration agents in place to enforce Mexico’s new limits on all but essential travel at its shared border with Guatemala.
Dozens of immigration agents lined the riverside asking those who landed on the giant innertube rafts that carry most of the cross-border traffic for documentation and turning many back.