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Mexico steps up revisions amid US pressure over migrant flow

Mexican authorities stepped up revisions along well-traveled routes for migrants in southern Mexico over the weekend, checking identifications, pulling migrants off public transport and intercepting four trucks packed with nearly 800 migrants

Soldiers forming part of Mexico's National Guard board a truck to patrol back roads used to circumvent a migration checkpoint, in Comitan, Chiapas state, Mexico, Saturday, June 15, 2019. Under pressure from the U.S. to slow the flow of migrants north, Mexico plans to deploy thousands of National Guard troops by Tuesday to its southern border region. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Soldiers forming part of Mexico's National Guard board a truck to patrol back roads used to circumvent a migration checkpoint, in Comitan, Chiapas state, Mexico, Saturday, June 15, 2019. Under pressure from the U.S. to slow the flow of migrants north, Mexico plans to deploy thousands of National Guard troops by Tuesday to its southern border region. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)Read moreRebecca Blackwell / AP

COMITAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexican authorities stepped up revisions along well-traveled routes for migrants in southern Mexico over the weekend, checking identifications, pulling migrants off public transport and intercepting four trucks packed with nearly 800 migrants.

The National Migration Institute said 1,000 immigration agents had been deployed in the north and south of Mexico. The deployment comes as Mexico faces heightened pressure from the U.S. to reduce the surge of mostly Central American migrants through its territory. Mexico plans to position 6,000 National Guard troops by Tuesday to its southern border with Guatemala.

The Associated Press saw nearly 10 armed soldiers at a checkpoint near Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, in Chiapas state, wearing black armbands to indicate they are part of the National Guard. The soldiers stopped vehicles while immigration officials checked identification and removed passengers without documents. At another checkpoint just north of Comitán in Chiapas, more than a dozen apparent National Guardsmen drove around backroads in the rain and dark, looking for migrants.

The Mexican National Guard is a new security force created by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office Dec. 1. The security force is still taking shape and was originally established with the goal of stemming endemic violence. Last year saw the highest number of murders in at least 20 years in Mexico.

Outside Comitán on Sunday, some roadblocks and checkpoints were manned by multiple soldiers and police identifying as National Guard. Others were staffed in shifts by a single immigration agent.

In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, the National Migration Institute said 791 people were taken Saturday to a migration facility and that drivers of the tractor-trailer trucks transporting them were arrested.

Migrants are routinely transported through Mexico in packed semis, sometimes in dangerous conditions without food or water or sufficient fresh air. Government video showed officials breaking the lock on the door of one cargo truck and helping migrants out.

The institute described the detentions and arrests in Veracruz as part of a strategy implemented by its new commissioner, Francisco Garduño. The former prisons director assumed the post Friday, taking over for a sociologist and academic.