Irineo Mujica speaks during a protest outside the US Embassy in Mexico City in April 2018.

Mexican authorities have arrested two organizers of last spring’s large Central American caravan that drew intense ire from the Trump administration, for allegedly transporting immigrants in exchange for money.



Irineo Mujica, the director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, was arrested Wednesday in the Mexican state of Sonora, and Cristóbal Sánchez, the founder of Migrant Culture Collective, was arrested at his home by plainclothes officers.

In a statement, Mexican prosecutors said two Honduran immigrants in April and May told authorities that Mujica and Sánchez promised to bring them into Mexico illegally, take them to the northern border, and smuggle them into the United States in exchange for money.



Mujica is accused of transporting immigrants, including children, while Sánchez is accused of helping people enter Mexico without legal documentation.

The arrests come as the US intensifies pressure on Mexico to stop the surge of immigrants, many from Central America, from arriving at the southern border.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras denounced the arrests as a politically motivated move from the Mexican government to appease the Trump administration.

"The Mexican government has detained them to present them as trophies before the United States government," the organization said in a statement. "Despite assurances from the Mexican government that tells us that Mexico makes its own migration policy, this series of events makes it clear that's not the case."

The immigrant rights group pointed out the arrests occurred on the same day Mexico's secretary of state met with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The detention, the group said, was made by, "a Mexican government that promised to defend human rights, but in reality has bent under pressure from the anti-immigrant government of the US."

In a statement, several human rights organizations denounced the arrests and said it criminalized immigrant rights defenders. The groups said the arrests have taken place under political and economic pressure from the US government against Mexico in order to stop Central American migration.



“This is an arbitrary and illegal act, and a representation against the important work of defending the human rights of the migrant and great efforts to generate a more just and less violent Mexico,” Pueblo Sin Fronteras said.