Mexican police detain hundreds of Central American migrants

PIJIJIAPAN, Mexico — Mexican police and immigration agents detained hundreds of Central American migrants Monday in the largest single raid on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year.

Police targeted isolated groups at the tail end of a caravan of about 3,000 migrants who were making their way through the southern state of Chiapas with hopes of reaching the U.S. border.

As migrants gathered under shade outside the city of Pijijiapan, federal police and agents passed by in patrol trucks and vans and forcibly wrestled women, men and children into the vehicles.

The migrants were driven to buses, presumably for subsequent transportation to an immigration station for deportation processing. As many as 500 migrants might have been picked up in the raid, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.

Some of the women and children wailed and screamed during the detentions on the roadside. Clothes, shoes, suitcases and strollers littered the scene after they were taken away.

Kevin Escobar, a 27-year-old from Honduras, was one of about 500 migrants who fled onto private property to avoid agents.

Escobar vowed he will never return to his hometown of San Pedro Sula, saying “the gangs are kidnapping everyone back there.”

Agents had encouraged groups of migrants to rest after some seven hours on the road, including about half of that under a broiling sun. When the migrants regrouped to continue, they were detained.