Mexico limits non-essential travel on southern border

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (AP) - The Mexican banks of the Suchiate river dawned with a heavy presence of immigration agents in place to enforce Mexico’s new limits on all but essential travel at its shared border with Guatemala.

Dozens of immigration agents lined the riverside Sunday asking those who landed on the giant innertube rafts that carry most of the cross-border traffic for documentation and turning many back.

But those turned away weren’t migrants, they were the small-time Guatemalan merchants and residents from Tecun Uman, across the river, who buy in bulk in Mexico to re-sell in Guatemala or purchase household items when the exchange rate favors it.