Mexican authorities send more migrants to detention center

ARRIAGA, Mexico – Authorities in southern Mexico have sent about 100 more migrants to a detention center amid the government’s push to deter Central Americans and others from crossing the country to reach the United States.

A marine, front, and National Guard, behind, stand guard outside an office of the General Attorney where migrants are brought before being transferred to Tapachula from Arriaga, Mexico, Sunday, June 23, 2019. Mexico has completed its deployment of 6,000 National Guard agents to help control the flow of migrants headed toward the U.S. and filled immigration agency posts to regulate border crossings, the government said Friday. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

Civil rights activist Luis Arbey Perez Cruz in the municipality of Arriaga said the group of migrants was transported to a center near the border with Guatemala on Sunday.

He says that “it was five immigration vans, returning to the border.”

Pressured by the U.S., Mexico has deployed some 6,000 agents of the new militarized National Guard policing force along its southern and northern borders this month to help deter migrants. In Ciudad Juarez, just south of El Paso, Texas, National Guardsmen turned back migrants trying to cross the border during the weekend. /gsg