The Mexican Police and immigration agents have detained hundreds of Central American migrants in the largest single raid on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year.
The police on Monday targeted isolated groups at the tail end of a caravan of about 3,000 migrants who were making their way through the southern state of Chiapas with hopes of reaching the US border.
As migrants gathered under spots of shade in the burning heat outside the city of Pijijiapan, federal police and agents passed by in patrol trucks and vans and forcibly wrestled women, men and children into the vehicles.
The migrants were driven to buses, presumably for subsequent transportation to an immigration station for deportation processing.
As many as 500 migrants might have been picked up in the raid, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.
Some of the women and children wailed and screamed during the detentions on the roadside. Clothes, shoes, suitcases and strollers littered the scene after they were taken away.
Kevin Escobar, a 27-year-old from Honduras, was one of about 500 migrants who fled onto private property to avoid immigration agents.
Sitting on the property, he yelled to them: "Why do you want to arrest me?"
"We are documenting what is happening," said Jess Salvador Quintana, a commission official. "We cannot tell authorities in charge what to do, but yes, we are documenting and we will investigate."
The National Human Rights Commission also said the facility is overcrowded. In its most recent statement from last week, the Migration Institute said 5,336 migrants were in shelters or immigration centres in Chiapas, and over 1,500 of them were "awaiting deportation."