Mexico: 143 Honduran Migrants Rescued from Abandoned Trailer

Over one hundred Honduran migrants were rescued by members of the Mexican Federal Police and the Secretariat of National Defense after being locked and abandoned in a trailer along a highway in the state of Veracruz.

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"Members of the Secretariat of National Defense and Federal Police managed to rescue dozens of people without documentation who were locked in the box of an abandoned trailer,” the government said in a statement, local media report.

One hundred thirty-four Honduran migrants and asylum seekers — 36 men, 27 women and 71 minors — were crammed into a large trailer, abandoned on the highway. Despite attempts to break the locks, the migrants were trapped until state agents found them and set them free.

"Some of them were dehydrated and others had minor injuries, and the  National Institute of Migration (INM) staff identified 134 migrants, 71 of them minors, 36 men and 27 women," the statement said, noting that the majority were without personal documents.

Elsewhere in Veracruz, over 450 undocumented immigrants were arrested by the INM and Navy police Thursday.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signed an agreement Friday to allow migrants to work for Mexican manufacturing companies without any legal formalities while awaiting asylum.

“Next week an agreement will be signed for work migrants to work in maquiladora companies, they are offering us 40 thousand jobs, they are willing to receive 40 thousand migrants," said the head of state during a press conference at the National Palace.

Since last year, an increased flow of migrants and refugee seekers are traveling from Central America to the United States. Human traffickers are taking advantage of the situation to kidnap, kill and extort those trying to travel north.