Police in Mexico's Chihuahua city say they have rescued 1,245 migrants from criminal gangs over the past seven months.
A law enforcement official said that kidnappings, extortion, and violence targeting foreign nationals who attempt to cross the border into the United States are on the rise, while the overall number of migrants making the journey has come down in recent months.
"We have diminished migration flows in terms of caravans and people arriving on trains. But I must point out we are seeing more people who are being kidnapped and extorted," Chihuahua State Public Safety Director Gilberto Loya, according to Border Report.
Abducted migrants are usually held in cramped stash houses, mostly in Juarez near the U.S. border with El Paso, Texas. Mexican officials said the migrants are rarely given food or water.
Police often learn about these stash houses through 911 calls from concerned neighbors who hear screams or see crowds of people through windows. Sometimes, tips come from U.S. officials contacted by the victims' families, or police find groups of migrants showing signs of violence wandering around.
"Last week we had two important rescues. One of 10 people from Sudan and Morocco. And last week we had the rescue of five people, three men and a woman from Guatemala and Nicaragua. They were malnourished, dehydrated," Loya said.
"What they wanted was to get to the United States. Unfortunately, they are falling prey to and abused by criminal gangs," he added.
Earlier this year, American migrant support nonprofits warned that violence against asylum-seekers was increasing because of stricter immigration enforcement in Mexico and at the U.S. Southwest border.
In a report "Pain as a Strategy" issued last month, the Hope Border Institute detailed how decisions taken by federal authorities in Mexico, Texas state officials at the Rio Grande levee, and the Biden administration's June 4 temporary border closure to asylum-seekers without appointments are endangering migrants.
"Once they arrive in Juarez, cartels routinely kidnap migrants and stow them in stash houses, where they take away all their belongings including cell phones," the report mentioned. "Having kidnapped migrants, cartel elements will proceed to contact family members to demand ransom (up to $20,000 according to survivors' testimonies), frequently after a week of having the person kidnapped so that families are more anxious and prone to pay."
Last month, a report mentioned that there was a surge in "unnecessary" family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that migrants were being mistreated while in U.S. Border Patrol custody.
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