Mexico Raided Migrant Train 153 Times in Last Year

MEXICO CITY — Mar 3, 2015, 6:10 PM ET


Mexican authorities staged 153 raids over the last year on a train known as "La Bestia" that once rolled toward the U.S. border crowded with Central American migrants.

Following a big surge in child migrants reaching the U.S. border last year, Mexico's government cracked down on routes commonly used by migrants to travel from Guatemala to the U.S. border.

The head of the National Immigration Institute said Tuesday that the 153 train raids were part of 758 immigration inspections over the last year. Such raids also target buses, trucks and other means of smuggling migrants.

Immigration commissioner Ardelio Vargas said Mexican immigration agents assisted 23,078 child migrants of various nationalities between January 2014 and February 2015.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...-year-29367394