Migrants Report Being Held at Gunpoint in Mexico by Cartel

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended several Central American migrants who reported being held at gunpoint and extorted for money by cartel members in Mexico. Agents patrolling near the border in the Laredo Sector apprehended a Honduran male in the early morning hours of February 26. The migrant told the agents that Mexican cartel members forced him and several other migrants off a bus as they traveled through Mexico last week. The cartel members allegedly took him and the other migrants to an unknown location where they held them against their will with about 200 other migrants, according to information obtained from Laredo Sector Border Patrol officials. Armed cartel members held the migrants while the attempted to extort them for money prior to allowing them to enter the U.S. The migrant said the cartel members held him for about a week before he escaped and managed to cross the Rio Grande River by himself. Later that day, agents came upon twelve more illegal aliens in the same area, officials stated. An Ecuadoran migrant who was with the group repeated a similar story to that of the Honduran migrant apprehended earlier on Tuesday. The Ecuadoran man said the cartel members were