Mexican authorities have reported that traffickers are now renting high-end tour buses to move Mexican and other Central American men, women and children to the U.S. border, according to The Associated Press.
Mexico’s Immigration Institute reports that it has found up to 102 illegal immigrants on two tour buses alone, being transported across the country.
The Institute also reported that because traffickers tend to want to move quickly, their passengers can go without water and food for days at a time. By not stopping for water and food, the traffickers and the immigrants themselves are given a better chance of successfully making it to the U.S. border due to the lowered possibility of someone looking into, or getting suspicious of the vehicle.
Of the 102 Mexican people on the tour buses discovered by the Immigration Institute, almost all of them had been deprived of water and food for at least two days.
The migrants reported that the trip had cost each person between $7,000 and $10,000 and they were to be transported to Reynosa, which is across the border from McAllen, Texas.
In the past few decades, traffickers have smuggled illegal Central American immigrants in freight trucks or large shipping containers. The results are that 49 percent (5.6 million) of illegal immigrants in America are Mexican.