400 migrants from B’desh detained on Mexico-US border

Hossen Sohel of DOT
Nearly 400 Bangladeshi migrants are currently in jails on the cross-border areas of the United States of America and Mexico after they were detained by the law enforcement agencies for attempting to enter the US illegally, reports New Age.
They were the victims of transnational trafficking who crossed the Atlantic convinced by the traffickers that they would finally be able to enter the US, said senior foreign ministry officials in Dhaka.
A senior official at Bangladesh Foreign Ministry said that those Bangladeshi migrants had paid over Tk10 lakh each to the traffickers to become the victims of trafficking.
At least 391 Bangladeshi migrants were detained in the borders of Mexico as they were trying to cross over to the US territory  illegally, the official said preferring anonymity. When asked, a senior diplomat at Bangladesh Embassy in Washington DC told New Age on Friday that it was a regular phenomenon — there were Bangladeshi migrants who tried to cross border illegally and sought asylums.
‘We do not encourage such illegal entry of the migrants without having obtained valid documents,’ the official added. Traffickers also send Bangladeshis to other South American countries with tourist visas before sending them to the US, officials said.
Bangladesh embassy in Brasilia in Brazil had witnessed a rise in such cases. Some Bangladeshi workers, who fell victim to human trafficking, often cross the Atlantic to enter into Brazil. Hashem (not his real name), a 25-year-old young Bangladeshi entrepreneur, used to run a small business in the capital city Dhaka. One night in 2016, he was instructed by traffickers he entrusted with his migration to arrive in Dhaka Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to fly off to Ecuador, a South American country.