Mexico announces crackdown on people smugglers after deadly crash

A new working group has been formed to combat people smuggling, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebard said, according to BBC. The working group comprises Mexico, the U.S., Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.

This announcement comes after a truck crash on a Mexican highway killed 55 migrants and injured more than 100 Thursday, The Associated Press reports. More than 150 people were packed into the tractor-trailer, which flipped when its driver attempted to take a turn too sharply.

The crash happened in Chiapas state near the Guatemalan border. "According to survivors, the majority appeared to be citizens of Guatemala," Luis Manuel García Moreno, the state director of civil protection, said in an interview broadcast on Foro TV.

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The migrants reportedly paid at least $2,500 each to be driven from southern to central Mexico, after which they would have had to hire other smugglers to complete their journey to the U.S. border.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has blamed the migrant crisis on a lack of good jobs. The Mexican government previously agreed to the Biden administration's reinstatement of the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy and has tried to stop the flow of migrants, but migrants continue to stream northward, whether on foot or smuggled in tractor-trailers.