On Tuesday, Mexican officials stated that they have started pulling migrants off the train known as "La Bestia," or "The Beast," which has carried many undocumented immigrants into the U.S.

According to The Associated Press, Humberto Mayans, head of the Mexican government's southern border improvement plans, said that immigration officials have removed 6,000 migrants from the train. The Mexican Interior Department said Tuesday that those apprehended were from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where most of the influx of unaccompanied minors are from, and were sent back to their homelands, Fox News Latino reports.

"We won't allow in any way for them to board the trains," Mayans told Radio Formula.

La Bestia is considered dangerous because many have fallen off the train to their deaths. In addition, Mexican officials say that gangs extort money from, rape and kill passengers. In fear of being caught boarding the train, many migrants have resorted to the woods and jungle about two miles away from the town of Arriaga, which seems deserted now that the raids have started.

"That's a lie. It doesn't make us safer," Manuel Villalta, a 31-year-old migrant from Huasapa, El Salvador who hopes to return to his job in U.S. meatpacking plants, said. "Look how we are in the woods, drinking water that can be infected."

Villalta and other migrants plan to board La Bestia as it slows down on a curve. This is much more risky than the previous practice of boarding the train when it stops in a town like Arriaga.

"They won't stop us," Villalta said. "If they detain 100, another 300, 400 will come."

Guillermo Sismit, a 38-year-old Guatemalan, sat alongside about 12 other migrants in the jungle sleeping on cardboard.

"Before we could stay in the town, but now we're exposed to everything in the woods, the animals, the police, the thieves, the narcos," he said.
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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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