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| - Dozens of mostly Central American migrants protested on Wednesday night at a detention center in southern Mexico, complaining of overcrowding and a lack of food and water. "I've been detained here for more than 20 days with my two children," said 39-year-old Jose Carrasco from El Salvador, who approached the gate of the facility in the state of Chiapas to speak to the press. "If they're not going to deport us, it's better that they free us, because there's no space to sleep. I sleep in the open air," he said. Carrasco said that several hundred people had been detained for more than a month and a half, waiting for the National Migration Institute (NMI) to define their legal status. As he spoke, other migrants beat the bars demanding medical attention, food and water. The situation was brought under control after police officers arrived at the scene. The NMI said Wednesday that it had detected a nationwide increase in the number of undocumented migrants this year. Between January 1 and March 21, 31,492 migrants were identified around Mexico -- an increase of around 18 percent compared with the same period last year, it said. Mexico announced last week that it would step up security along its southern frontier with Guatemala to stop child migrants crossing on their way to the United States. US President Joe Biden's opponents have seized on a migrant influx at the Mexican-US border to accuse him of creating a "crisis" with a naive immigration stance. str/yug/dr/st
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