Unknown abduct 19 migrants from a bus at the border of Mexico and the United States

Armed people in masks broke into a bus in northern Mexico, a few kilometers from the border with the United States. They did not shoot a single shot, but took the 19 passengers with them. Law enforcement officers are trying to figure out what really happened.

Фото: Depositphotos

Public pressure on Mexican officials is growing - people are demanding answers. The country's authorities are investigating what they consider to be a mass abduction, writes CNN. At the moment, they have offered the public several versions.

An important key detail stated officially: it is likely that all abducted persons were migrants who came from Central America through Mexico and were sent to the United States.

Theory 1: Migrant kidnapped

At first, the authorities tried to get away from this version, but later announced a national operation to search for missing migrants.

What is known:

On March 7, militants intercepted a bus on the highway connecting the city of San Fernando (Tamaulipas state) with the city of Reynosa (adjacent to the American border from McAllen, Texas). San Fernando is a notorious place where 2010 migrants were killed in 72, and a year later the remains of 200 people were found in mass graves in the area. In the latter case, it was also about kidnapping people from buses. Just this week, Mexican authorities announced the rescue of a group of 34 migrants abducted in Tamaulipas earlier.

What the experts say:

For many years, lawyers and analysts have warned of frequent attacks on migrants from Central America who are heading north through Mexico. According to estimates by the Human Rights Commission, held in 2011, more than 6 11 migrants were abducted in Mexico over a period of 000 months.

Kidnappers are taking different approaches in different parts of the country, said Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin. In Tamaulipas, bus interception is a common tactic.

“Armed cars stop the bus, people with weapons enter and pull out passengers. This is a method of abduction that fits neatly into the pattern,” she says.

Maureen Meyer, director of Mexico and migrant rights for the Washington Office on Latin America, said the latest incident has drawn a lot of attention, but it's not the only one - it's part of a series of kidnappings that Mexican authorities "have not done enough to solve."

“Migrants become victims of crime in Mexico precisely because of their vulnerable status,” she says. “It has become profitable for criminal groups to earn thousands of dollars per migrant because they hold them for ransom.”

According to Rafael Alonso Hernandez Lopez, who runs a doctoral program to study migration at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (College of the Northern Frontier) in Tijuana, Mexico, it’s generally surprising that Mexican officials started talking about what happened. Probably, the changes are related to the fact that in December the new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador came to power, whose administration decided to act differently from its predecessors.

Theory 2: The abductors and the abductees agreed

When it became known about the disappearance of migrants, Lopez Obrador and one of the top national security officials in Mexico stated that they had not been abducted. The version says that these people met with smugglers with whom they signed an agreement to cross the border with the United States illegally.

“There is a hypothesis that this is a way to get into the United States. It’s not that they disappear, but how they cross the border,” Obrador told reporters.

What is known:

Mexican officials say they contacted the authorities in Central America to find out if anyone had reported the loss of loved ones. And still have not received any reports.

Mexico’s security minister, Alfonso Durazo, told reporters that not a single shot was fired on the bus when the militants landed, and only men were captured. According to the minister, these facts are alarming.

“Intelligence indicates that criminal groups operating in the area are offering services to transport migrants to the United States,” Durazo said.

Authorities report that all 44 passengers aboard the bus were tested at a military checkpoint an hour before the attack. It is assumed that the migrants on the flight had fake Mexican identity cards, because the inspecting staff did not register a single foreigner among them.

What the experts say:

Leutert finds the idea of ​​masked gunmen ambushing the bus as part of a smuggling deal incongruous. The expert believes that if you need to “just meet,” you can wait at the bus stop.

“This doesn’t fit into the pattern of migrant smuggling,” she says. “But it fits into the kidnapping pattern.”

Jeremy Slack, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, says it's unclear whether authorities know more than they are telling the press. But both theories presented by Mexican officials could be true. He said the migrants may have hired smugglers who later decided they wanted more money - and decided to kidnap them rather than smuggle them across the border. Sometimes, he said, migrants make a smuggling deal with one criminal group, only to be intercepted by another in the process.

Regardless of which theory proves to be true, what happened has serious implications for the immigration debate. Cut the situation at the border:

• US authorities are increasingly forcing migrants to stay in Mexico. They limit the number of those who can seek asylum at checkpoints, and also send those waiting back to Mexico before the court ruling.
• Representatives of the United States say that the families of migrants heading for the border have increased significantly, and other groups arriving at the border have increased in numbers.
• Mexican officials claim that protecting human rights is the highest priority in migration issues, but border cities in Mexico are struggling to cope with the influx of those who want to go to the United States.

Experts say that this combination of factors may further aggravate an already unstable situation.

“Border cities can become ungovernable very quickly,” says Meyer of the Washington Office on Latin America. — Criminal groups follow migrants because they are easy victims. This may impact border communities in ways that are not expected.”

Leitert, of the University of Texas, says the nature of the attack on the bus signals a "return to more violent times along the border."

“A mass kidnapping is a lot more complicated than just throwing two people in the back of a car,” she says. “This requires a different level of complexity and corruption. We really haven’t seen high-profile cases of this kind for a long time.”

Read also on ForumDaily:

California resident died at the hands of an illegal who 9 once saved from state deportation asylum law

Immigrants of what nationality moved to the United States over the past hundred years

Court in the United States significantly changed the procedure for obtaining asylum for immigrants

The number of arrests of illegal immigrants at the border has reached a maximum in the last 12 years

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.