mexican officials have rescued 327 immigrants - including 120 children - being held by smugglers in a warehouse near the border with the us

Security forces and immigration agents on Tuesday rescued 327 migrants who were being held at a northeast Mexico warehouse where they were waiting to be smuggled into the United States, officials said.

The National Institute of Migration said there were at least 120 children among the adults crammed together in a building that had no running water.

'During the housing inspection, it was found that 327 foreign migrants were staying there without water, food and in subhuman, overcrowded, vulnerable and unsanitary conditions that put the lives of minors, women and adults at risk,' the National Institute of Migration said in a statement. 

The warehouse is located in the Nuevo León town of Cadereyta, approximately 120 miles from the United States-Mexico border.

The immigration enforcement agency said the discovery was made possible Tuesday morning while detectives assigned to the Nuevo León State Investigations Agency were following the case of a migrant who had died at a local hospital.

National Institute of Migration and security forces discovered 327 migrants - including 120 children - inside a warehouse in Cadereyta, a municipality in the northeastern state of Nuevo León that is approximately 120 miles from the United States-Mexico border

A Mexican federal agent tends to a group of children and adults who were found in a warehouse in northeast Mexico. Smugglers housed them there as part of the process of ferrying over the United States-Mexico border

The migrants were removed from the warehouse at approximately 5pm local time.

The building in the past had served as the headquarters of a construction company.

The rescued migrants were loaded onto three buses and taken to a local National Institute of Migration center, where agency workers were going to review the migrant status. 

The National Institute of Migration said the migrants where forced to stay at the warehouse 'without water, food and in subhuman, overcrowded, vulnerable and unsanitary conditions that put the lives of minors, women and adults at risk'

According to the National Institute of Migration, the 327 migrants were found at the warehouse while detectives with the Nuevo León State Investigations Agency were following the case of a migrant who recently died at a local hospital

The massive bust came on the same day the National Institute of Migration released a report that showed 34,427 minors had illegally entered Mexico between January 2021 and August 2021 - a 194 percent increase compared with the same period in 2020 when 11,703 underage children entered the country.

At least 8,525 unaccompanied children transited through Mexico during the first eight months of 2021.

According to a National Institute of Migration law which was amended January 11, adult migrants accompanying minors are not permitted to be housed at immigration stations, thus leaving them to seek housing in shelters operated by religious organizations or camp out in tent cities across the border from the U.S. where they remain exposed to being kidnapped by cartels and gangs.

Data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection earlier this month showed that the U.S. Border Patrol reported 212,672 encounters in the southwestern border region in July 2021

The National Institute of Migration learned through migrants that smuggling organizations are misinforming them about their prospects of being allowed into the United States to seek asylum.

“People identified as ‘smugglers’ assure them that there is an amnesty in the United States that favors the entry of migrants, even though they are undocumented and especially for those who go with children and adolescents," the agency said in its report.  

Data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection earlier this month showed that the U.S. Border Patrol reported 212,672 encounters in the southwestern border region in July, increasing the number of migrants stopped for illegal border entry to 1,331,822 for fiscal year 2021. 

A total of 18,962 unaccompanied minors were stopped for illegal passage through the United States-Mexico border.