Squeezed in trailer

...& forcibly drugged

Mexico blocked more than 500 migrants this weekend from being transported to the US — including 206 found forcibly drugged in an abandoned trailer — as authorities crack down on illegal and unsafe transportation practices.

Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM) said 206 migrants were found “locked in airtight compartments of an abandoned trailer” in the town of Puente Nacional, Veracruz, on Saturday.

Those migrants, packed (right) in a crowded vehicle on their trek from Guatemala and Honduras, were “forced to ingest substances to endure their confinement,” the INM said, according to Newsflash.

Men, women and children were found in the trailer wearing ID bracelets, the INM said.

After being found, the migrants told officials that they were cramped, dehydrated and medicated to inhibit their basic needs for the long, precarious journey.

Officials said 132 of the migrants were traveling in family units from Guatemala and three families made up of 12 people came from Honduras.

There were 39 adults traveling alone, including four women and 35 men, and 20 minors — 15 boys and five girls — from Guatemala.

Three other adults from Honduras were also traveling alone.

“The minors and family units were transferred to the National System for Integral Family Development (DIF), while the adult individuals were taken to INM facilities to undergo the corresponding immigration procedures,” the INM said.

The inside of the trailer, which had been modified with “airtight material” to avoid detection by X-ray security checkpoints at the border, had also been modified to have a second level.

The truck had been abandoned by the alleged traffickers, and the driver fled.

The vehicle was handed over to the Attorney General’s Office in Veracruz, the INM said.

Migrants are being processed by authorities and face being sent back to Central America.

On Friday, the INM reported authorities had intercepted 303 migrants in two operations in Veracruz.

In the first, 107 migrants without regular migration status — including 20 unaccompanied minors — were found in a tractortrailer on a highway.

Six people were arrested for their alleged roles in transporting the migrants, who had been traveling from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

In the second, authorities found 196 migrants, including 19 unaccompanied minors, in a tractortrailer in Fortin de las Flores.

Five were adults from Guatemala and five were adults from India, the INM said without providing details on the other migrants found.