A small town in southern Mexico voted to kick out U.S.-bound migrants who had been staying in their community during their journey north. The vote to expel the migrants comes after at least one of them is believed to have killed a local woman.
The crime occurred on September 29 in Barras de Copalita, Oaxaca, the local station Encuentro Radio reported. The victim, 28-year-old Rebeca Hernandez Flores, was in her house when at least one migrant who was working a construction job nearby barged in, assaulted her and beat her to death.
In the days after, authorities arrested a migrant identified only as Jose Enrique A.E., who is from Honduras. The Honduran migrant had been part of one of the caravans headed north but had remained in town for at least two months, working odd construction jobs. It remains unclear if other individuals were involved in the violent killing. The state attorney general’s office announced the suspect’s arrest and classified the case as femicide, a particular classification under Mexican law for female killings due to their gender. The offense can carry stricter penalties than a traditional homicide.
According to a report from Mexico’s Proceso, local town officials and officials from the municipality of San Miguel del Puerto voted in their local assemblies to kick migrants out of their town and to stop migrants in transit from settling there. Authorities are planning to carry out operations where they will ask migrants to leave their community, Proceso reported.
The controversial measure comes when immigration remains a top issue in Mexico. Earlier this month, six Middle Eastern migrants and several others were injured in the border state of Chiapas after Mexico’s military mistook the convoy that human smugglers were moving the migrants in for a convoy of cartel gunmen, Breitbart Texas reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
