Mexican authorities say migrant traffickers have adopted a new trick to smuggle Central American clients to the U.S. border: renting high-end tour buses.
Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) says it has found 102 migrants on two buses being used to whisk them across the length of the country.
The migrants reported paying between $7,000 and $10,000 to go from an area near the Guatemalan border to Reynosa, a city across from McAllen, Texas.
The institute said Monday that because the traffickers wanted to move quickly, they had not stopped to get the migrants food or water for two days.
In the past, smugglers have frequently crammed migrants into hidden compartments in freight trucks while transporting them through the country.