Hundreds of migrants found inside freight trucks

COATZACOALCOS, Mexico — Mexican authorities discovered more than 400 migrants transiting the country in the back of two semi-trailers, not far from where two migrant caravans were more visibly, and slowly, making their way north.

“Some were very dirty, covered in mud, I imagine because of the conditions of the container ... the overcrowding,” said Tonatiuh Hernandez Sarmiento of the Veracruz Human Rights Commission after visiting the migrants Friday.

There were children, pregnant women and ill people among them, he said.

While the caravans of hundreds of migrants walking by day together up highways draw more attention, the clandestine flow of migrants who pay smugglers for direct trips to the U.S. border continue.

The leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada discussed immigration during meetings in Washington on Thursday at the North America Leaders’ Summit. Their statements after the meetings were positive and optimistic, but light on details.

The three countries agreed to increase the paths for legal migration, for example with more visas for temporary workers. They also pledged to expand access to protective status for migrants and to address the causes that lead them to migrate, but did not offer hard numbers or timelines.

“It wasn’t something substantial. I see it as stagnant, there aren’t advances,” said Alejandra Macias, director of the nongovernmental organization Asylum Access Mexico.

A migrant caravan currently in Veracruz is the first to advance that far in two years. Since 2019, security forces have stopped and broken up the caravans.

This time, the Mexican government used the offer of humanitarian visas to diminish the caravan’s numbers as it slowly moved north, but some have remained suspicious and continued walking. Some migrants who received the documents have reported being swept up by authorities in the north and returned to Tapachula in Chiapas state near the Guatemala border.

“They give you a paper, but only for Tapachula,” said Abel Louigens, who is originally from Haiti. “But in Chiapas there’s no work.” He said he would settle wherever he could find work in Mexico and only enter the U.S. legally. “I can’t risk them sending me back to my country.”