Mexican authorities found 229 migrants packed in the back of a truck traveling through the eastern state of Veracruz, a state official said Monday, calling it the first such discovery in months. The migrants were reported to have been trapped inside a vehicle that had been taken to a police impound lot after being reported stolen, officials said.
José Manuel Pozos, Veracruz’s deputy government secretary, said authorities found the migrants after they began to call for help from within the truck at the impound lot. Pozos said most of the migrants were from Central America, adding that 17 were minors and that several were dehydrated.
A worker at the Xalapa vehicle impound lot told The Associated Press that the truck’s trailer was stopped about 45 kilometers (28 miles) southeast of the city and brought to the lot. The worker said that hours after it arrived, workers began hearing shouting and banging from inside.
When staff realized people were locked inside, they contacted emergency services to open the vehicle, the worker said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. In the afternoon, state police removed the migrants from the impound lot, and the migrants were transported in state police buses, AP reported.
Pozos said Veracruz police did not report where the migrants were taken. Generally, migrants without legal status are handed over to Mexico’s immigration agency, according to AP reporting.
Officials and migrants advocates have long said smugglers use overcrowded trucks and other vehicles to move people north through Mexico, often under dangerous conditions intended to evade authorities. AP reported that smugglers sometimes use specially modified trailers with hidden compartments, and that fake ambulances have also been used to get past checkpoints.
AP said Mexico increased seizures of these vehicles and the detention of migrants traveling inside them from 2022 to 2024, even as irregular migration north appeared to fall after U.S. President Donald Trump took office. This encounter in Veracruz, AP said, comes as some shelters in southern Mexico told AP they have started taking in Central Americans heading north again, though in very small numbers.
AP also pointed to past deadly incidents involving migrants transported in vehicles, including a 2021 accident in southern Mexico and a 2022 case in which 53 migrants died after being abandoned in a truck in San Antonio, Texas.