Smuggling organizations in Mexico are rushing migrants to the US-Mexico border before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
With the promise of shutting down the border on day 1 of his administration, Trump is largely seen as disrupting the record-breaking flow of human traffic that has taken place under President Joe Biden, where a minimum of 11 million migrants have crossed into the country.
In the most recent example of this, nearly 300 people, including more than 50 children, were caught crammed into the back of a semi-truck in Mexico headed for El Paso, Texas.
Mexican military members stopped the tractor trailer at an immigration checkpoint in Chihuahua City – about four hours from the international boundary.
Mexican officials believe there is a ‘rush’ to get migrants across the border before Jan. 20, when Trump officially becomes President of the United States– slowing down the $13 billion a year human trafficking business on the border.
A mass human trafficking operation was thwarted less than five house before nearly 300 migrants reached the US-Mexico border
‘This indicates the possible acceleration on the part of organized crime groups to be transporting and trafficking people,’ Chihuahua’s Public Safety Secretary Gilberto Loya told reporters Monday.
Authorities were tipped off the human cargo inside the trailer by a tipster who made a call to authorities, Loya added.
While it’s common for migrants to be smuggled in 18-wheelers on both the US and Mexican side of the border, the sheer number of people found this time is much larger than what is normally seen.
Migrants are sometimes hidden among real cargo, like produce, or stowed in small hidden compartments of the vehicle.
It’s not normal to see an entire trailer hauling people.
The 257 migrants were from Central and South America, and from countries in Africa, Loya explained.
Of the 257 migrants being smuggled in tractor-trailer, most were from South and Central America, however, Mexican authorities added that some were African. There were also dozens of children in the trailer
The tractor-trailer was stopped less than five hours from the nearest US city, El Paso, Texas
The migrants rescued from the tractor trailer, which can often end in death, will likely be returned Mexico’s border with Guatemala
Law enforcement on both sides of the US-Mexico border have been anticipating a surge in migrants after Trump won the presidential election on Nov. 5.
The Republican campaigned on closing the border to migrants and carrying out the largest mass deportation operation the US has ever seen.
Among his first actions as president-elect. Trump has named a ‘border czar’ to carry out his agenda on the border.
Tom Homan, who previously served as Trump’s director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will be in charge of deportation plans.
Authorities in Mexico have been bracing for a possible surge at the border by breaking up large groups of migrant seen traveling together.
In recent days, a 3,000-migrant caravan traveling through Central Mexico was cut by about half.
Some were forcibly returned to Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, but other volunteered to go back on their own.
‘I had hoped (Kamala Harris ) would win, but that didn’t happen,’ Venezuelan Valerie Andrade told Reuters.
