Cartels kidnap more than 1,200 migrants, police chief says

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police in Chihuahua, Mexico, say they have rescued 1,245 migrants from criminal gangs in the past seven months.

Kidnappings, extortions and violence against foreigners coming to the U.S. border are on the rise, a law enforcement official says, despite the fact that overall migrant traffic has dropped dramatically in recent months.

“We have fewer migratory flows in terms of caravans and people arriving by train. But I must say that we are seeing more people being kidnapped and extorted,” said Gilberto Loya, director of public security for the state of Chihuahua.

Kidnapped migrants are typically held in overcrowded stash houses, mostly in Juarez, just south of the border with El Paso, Texas. They are rarely given food or even water, Mexican officials say.

Police learn of hiding places through 911 calls from shocked neighbors who hear screams or see crowds of people through windows. Sometimes the tips come from U.S. officials contacted by victims’ relatives in the U.S. Sometimes police simply encounter groups of individuals with signs of violence walking aimlessly.

That was the case last week on the highway from Chihuahua City to Juarez. State police officers found 10 Sudanese and Moroccan nationals who had been released from an unknown location after their relatives paid a ransom.

“Last week we had two important rescues. One of 10 people from Sudan and Morocco,” Loya said. “And last week we had the rescue of five people, three men and a woman from Guatemala and Nicaragua. They were malnourished, dehydrated.

“What they wanted was to go to the United States. Unfortunately, they are being victimized and abused by criminal gangs.”

U.S. nonprofits that support migrants warned last spring that violence against asylum seekers was increasing because of stricter immigration measures in Mexico and at the U.S. Southwest border.

In a July report called Pain as a strategyThe Hope Border Institute outlined how actions by federal authorities in Mexico, Texas authorities at the Rio Grande dike, and the Biden administration’s temporary closure of the border to asylum seekers without an appointment at a border crossing on June 4 are putting migrants at risk.

The institute’s research reveals how three transnational criminal organizations in Juarez – La Linea, the Sinaloa cartel and the emerging La Empresa group – control the Mexican side of the border.

“Once they arrive in Juarez, the cartels routinely kidnap migrants and hide them in warehouses, where they take all of their belongings, including cellphones,” he said. Pain as a strategy“After kidnapping migrants, cartel members contact family members to demand ransom (as much as $20,000, according to survivor testimonies), often as soon as a week after the person has been kidnapped, so that families are more fearful and more likely to pay.”

Jesus de la Torre, deputy director for global migration at the Hope Border Institute, said it is imperative that the U.S. and Mexican governments change their migration policies to keep vulnerable people safe as they seek a better life.

“The best antidote to reduce crimes against people in transit and deaths is to provide safe migration pathways and place humanitarian values ​​at the heart of our migration policies,” de la Torre told Border Report in an email Tuesday. “The U.S. and Mexican governments must stop repressing people in transit and instead allow them to exercise their right to asylum in a fair and humane manner.”