National Guard stops 62 Asians headed to US border

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexico’s National Guard says it has apprehended 74 migrants headed to the United States along railroad tracks and an airport in the border state of Sonora.

Sixty-two of those migrants were coming from Asian countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India without permits to travel through Mexico, the Guard said in a statement .

The first encounter occurred last week on train tracks running parallel to a highway north of the port city of Guaymas. A group of 50 foreign nationals approached by Guard members and agents with the National Migration Institute (INM) allegedly admitted waiting to get on top of boxcars on a train headed for the border city of Mexicali, opposite Calexico, California.

All but two were from Asian countries and none had travel papers; they were taken to an INM station for food, a medical checkup and to wait for a determination on their legal status, the Guard said.

Mexican authorities last spring began cracking down on migrants riding cargo trains from southern Mexico to the U.S. border by the thousands. Immigration experts say the crackdown is one of the reasons illegal immigration apprehensions have been down along the southern border of the United States in the past few months.

A second encounter took place at the airport in Hermosillo, Sonora. The Guard and INM agents approached a group of 24 Asian, African, Central and South American migrants who arrived on a flight from Mexico City. The Guard said they lacked proof of lawful entry and lawful stay in Mexico, so they were taken to an immigration station while federal authorities decide what to do with them.

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