Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard confirmed at a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday the arrest of 107 Mexican nationals in raids carried out a day earlier in the state of Mississippi.
Ebrard said that “all Mexicans who were arrested yesterday will have assistance in the legal process by Mexico and its consulates” and that “those who are repatriated” will be accompanied “by authorities of the Ministry of Interior”and will receive “offers of employment, health, and education, if they so desire and need it.”
The US Customs Immigration and Control Service Police (ICE) detained 683 migrants at seven different food processing plants near Jackson, Mississippi, this Wednesday.
In reference to the legal strategy the Mexican government is pursuing in the aftermath of the mass shooting in El Paso last Saturday, Ebrard said that “relevant steps” have been taken to “advance in the typification […] of the events that occurred in El Paso, Texas, as terrorism. ”
A total of 22 people were killed, including seven Mexican nationals, and a further 26 injured when an armed man opened fire in a Walmart at the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso.