In the largest deportation in the country’s history, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) sent 311 undocumented migrants back to India on Wednesday night.
Accompanied by federal immigration agents and National Guardsmen, the migrants were put aboard a Boeing 747 headed for New Delhi from Toluca International Airport.
The migrants had been detained Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Sonora, Durango, Baja California and Mexico City before being transferred to the migrants’ center in Acayucan, Veracruz, for identification and transfer to Toluca.
The INM reported that the detainees included 310 men and one woman, all of whom were adults.
The action was unprecedented in the history of the INM, both in the procedure by which it was carried out and the number of people deported.
“This action, in which we had the support of the Federal Protection Service (SPF) of the Secretariat of Security . . . was carried out without setbacks and with the respect of the human rights of the foreigners transferred to their country of origin,” the INM said in a statement.
The deportation comes after the Mexican government deployed thousands of National Guard troops to the border with Guatemala in June after pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump had threatened to levy tariffs on Mexican goods if Mexico did not slow the flow of drugs and migrants to the United States.
Source: El Sol de México (sp)
