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News > World

Search for Missing Migrant Rights Activist Begins in US, Mexico

  • Castro has been missing since Friday.

    Castro has been missing since Friday. | Photo: Facebook / Gaba Cortes

Published 16 April 2017
Opinion

Castro was to join a group of people from Central America who are seeking asylum in the U.S. and bring attention to their plight.

A transnational search effort has been launched to find activist Hugo Castro, a U.S. citizen who disappeared Friday while traveling alone as a part of a refugee assistance trip.

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The Border Angels volunteer, who heads up the nonprofit’s efforts in Baja California, had left his home in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico, on April 9 to take part in the Refugee Caravan, where he had plans to join a large group of people from Central America who are traveling to the U.S. to seek asylum, and draw attention to their plight.

Castro is well known in San Diego, Los Angeles and throughout the U.S. Southwest for his passionate and energetic work in support of deported immigrants, who are often left helpless and without resources following their removal from the U.S.

However, on Thursday afternoon, the last time he was heard from, Castro went live on Facebook to plead for help and for someone to pick him up from the highway between Mexico City and Puebla. He talked fearfully in the video about a group of people following him, and also mentioned that he had so far been unable to pay for services with U.S. dollars.

Speaking to KBPS, Border Angels Founder Enrique Morones noted that Castro "had received multiple death threats" as a result of his work to protect migrants from Haiti.

Castro's last live broadcast.

Castro’s partner, Gaba Cortes, has since been posting updates of the search on her Facebook page.

“These are difficult times for everyone … Hugo Castro is still missing and we don't have any substantiated information. We ask you stay tuned for the announcements of the family,” she wrote Saturday.

Cortes told reporters that Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission and U.S. authorities such as the FBI have been notified of his disappearance.

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