Hundreds of Migrants Found in Two US-Bound Trailer Trucks

Source: Guardian UK / Associated Press

Hundreds of migrants found in two US-bound trailer trucks
Several of the 513 Mexican migrants dehydrated after travelling for hours in dangerously crowded conditions

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 May 2011 08.00 BST

Some of the migrants had to cling to cargo ropes to remain upright to allow others to be crammed on on to the truck floor. Photograph: Ren De Jesus Araujo/EPA
Police in Mexico's southern Chiapas state have found 513 migrants inside two trailer trucks bound for the US, and said they had been transported in dangerously crowded conditions.

Some of the immigrants were suffering from dehydration after travelling for hours clinging to cargo ropes strung inside the containers to keep them upright and to allow more migrants to be more crammed in on the floor.

The trucks had air holes punched in the tops of the containers, but migrants interviewed at the state prosecutors' office said they lacked air and water. The trucks were bound for the central city of Puebla, where the migrants said they had been told they would be loaded onto a second set of vehicles for the trip to the US border.

"We were suffering, it was very hot and we were clinging to the ropes," said Mario, a 23-year-old Honduran migrant who identified himself only by his first name. Mexico's national human rights commission says thousands of undocumented migrants are kidnapped and held for ransom by drug gangs in Mexico each year.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/may/18/hundreds-migrants-two-trailer-trucks?CMP=twt_fd

Police believe the foreigners had to pay $7,000 (£4,300) per person to the alleged traffickers to take them into the US.

While most of those on board were thought to be from Guatemala, there were others from Ecuador and El Salvador as well as smaller numbers from as far afield as China, Japan, Nepal and India.

There were 32 women and 4 children on board, authorities said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13434589

Its the immigrants paying the $7k - not employers. We have the same in the UK sometimes when trucks at Dover are found to have Chinese on board - they test the trucks / containers for CO2 escapage from people breathing, or trying to breath, inside.

In some cases, though, it is the employers who pay the coyotes -- one of the large chicken processors got busted for it several years ago.

It's put on the worker's tab.

I see a bunch of productively employed people. You want to see sorrow, go out and meet some of the people who want to be productively employed but can't find a job to save their lives.

When they find out what fraction of their productive activity is actually their pay. In capitalism, the capital concentrates at the top, which leaves plenty of sorrow for everyone else.

No shade. And a pay rate that's an insult - Adults today, getting almost exactly what we kids got 30 years ago in Australia picking for pocket money.


Productive for the grower is penury for the picker.

Donald Trump's faux presidential candidacy, the royal wedding, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan...

but later than the Guardian, which is why I regularly read the Guardian online for world news as it has deeper coverage than american media sometimes

Congress has GOT to do something...

(on edit) CNN article about this

And the administration is pushing the FTA with Colombia which has the second highest number of internally displaced people in the world. That will end well.