100 Migrants Found in House Guarded by Armed Men

Local police say they found 104 migrants inside an overcrowded stash house in Juárez, Mexico, where they were being guarded by armed men.

The migrants were almost all from Central America and included four minors, Chihuahua Secretary of State of Public Safety Gilberto Loya said, according to Border Report, which reports on news about the Mexico-U.S. border. Four men were arrested and a 9mm gun with ammunition was retrieved from the scene.

"This occurred after a 911 call reporting armed people entering into a home," said Jorge Armendáriz, a spokesperson for Chihuahua's Secretary of State of Public Safety, according to KVIA News.

Migration is an ongoing source of tension in the U.S. and will likely be a contentious issue in the lead-up to the 2024 election.

Mexican authorities have been cracking down on the flow of migrants after illegal crossings into the U.S. reached a record high of 250,000 in December. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that there were more than 9.8 million migrant encounters recorded between October 2019 and January 2024.

President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke in a phone call on Sunday about cooperating on migration policy and implementing measures to reduce the number of unauthorized border crossings.

The numbers of migrants heading to Juárez, which is on the border with Texas, have been rising. Hundreds of migrants headed toward the El Paso-Juarez border on top of freight trains last week, Border Report said.

The numbers are increasing partly due to warming weather and because federal courts halted the enforcement of a Texas immigration law, SB4, that would allow police to arrest migrants illegally crossing the border from Mexico.

Armendáriz said that people heard calls for help coming from inside the house that alerted authorities. It's not clear who made the 911 call.

KVIA aired footage of what appeared to be dozens of migrants sitting on a sidewalk behind police tape. The migrants were handed over to Mexican immigration agents to be processed, according to the report.

The story comes a week after Mexican authorities stopped a semi-truck with a trailer filled with 131 Central and South American migrants that was heading to Juárez. The migrants were found in cramped conditions in the trailer with no air-conditioning, and agents said they were concerned about their health.