In recent months, the ongoing migrant crisis has prompted calls for immediate action. President Trump's discussions with Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador has led to an initiative to counter illegal immigration from Latin America. Lopez-Obrador has since established a bilateral dialogue with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Last Wednesday, the Honduran news publication La Prensa reported that Mexico's National Institute for Migration (INM) conducted an enforcement operation near the U.S.-Mexico border. Federal police detained a private tour bus on the Torreron-Saltillo highway in Coahuila and 91 Central American migrants were apprehended. Of those migrants, 60 were Honduran and 31 were Salvadoran. The migrants were detained and transported to a temporary shelter until a deportation date can be set.
The tour bus embarked from Durango and was headed to Monterrey, California. The officers on scene arrested four individuals suspected of smuggling. The bus and accompanying vehicle were impounded at the attorney general’s office. This is the second large group of migrants apprehended by Mexican authorities this month.
Two weeks ago, Telemundo reported the repatriation of nearly 70 Central American migrants in Ciudad Juarez. The nationalities of that group were 40 Hondurans, 22 Guatemalans, and 7 Salvadorans. All but three of the migrants had applied for asylum in the United States. Recently, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the INM implemented a temporary "Voluntary Return Program" in Ciudad Juarez. This allows migrants to return to their home countries' at their discretion, while awaiting the outcome of their asylum claims in the United States.
According to INM, Mexico deported 21,912 migrants in June, an increase of 32.7 percent from the previous month.