US

Cartels Ramping Up Attacks Near Border With Attempts To Kidnap Migrants

Members of the Navy keep watch at La Mora ranch, in Bavispe, Sonora State, Mexico, as Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds a meeting with relatives of the Mormon massacre victims, on January 12, 2020. - The November 4 ambush in which nine US women and children where killed, happened on an isolated dirt road in a region known for turf wars between drug cartels fighting over lucrative trafficking routes to the United States. (Photo by Alfredo ESTRELLA / AFP) (Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)

(Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)

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Jennie Taer Investigative Reporter
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Cartels are ramping up attacks near the U.S. border with attempts to kidnap migrants.

Mexican authorities are raising concerns over the issue, saying the cartels are becoming more brazen with the influx of migrants bound for the U.S. with seven large migrant kidnapping attempts, according to Border Report. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered a record of more than 2.3 million migrants in fiscal year 2022. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Regret’: ICE Apologizes For ‘Miscalculation’ Of Illegal Immigrant Data After DCNF Exposes Major Errors)

Mexican authorities arrested two people that allegedly shot the driver of a bus carrying 42 migrants Wednesday near Juarez, according Border Report. The suspects were accused of trying to kidnap the migrants, but authorities later located 19 migrants and the two suspected kidnappers.

“Organized criminal gangs are financing their operations through migrant trafficking. This is happening all over the state, but more so along the border,” Chihuahua state police Chief Gilberto Loya said Thursday, according to Border Report.

“Three vehicles tried to cut off the bus, they fired some shots and yelled for the driver to stop. The driver closed the door and drove away,” Loya said.

MCALLEN, TEXAS - MARCH 23: U.S. Border Patrol agents take asylum seekers into custody as seen from a Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter near the U.S.-Mexico Border on March 23, 2021 in McAllen, Texas. Texas DPS troopers are taking part in Operation Lone Star in supporting U.S. Border Patrol agents to "deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas." (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Alleged armed cartel members broke into a migrant shelter in Juarez Nov. 29, lining up the women and children to transport them until a Mexican police officer scared them away, according to KRQE.

“It was about 1:30 and we were in bed. Several trucks arrived. I heard a loud noise like an earthquake,” a Venezuelan migrant who witnessed the attacks said, according to KRQE. “They knocked down the door with a truck and took us out of our rooms. They said they were going to take the men in one truck, the women and the children in another.”

The attempted kidnapping ultimately fell through, but the alleged cartel members fled with the migrants’ money and phones , according to KQRE.

“The level of insecurity has gone up a lot to the point they attack shelters. They don’t realize how much we struggle to bring supplies to these humanitarian spaces, and then they come and rob us and beat us,” El Paso Pastor Rosalio Sosa told KTSM/Border Report.

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