MEXICO CITY, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Mexican Federal Preventive Police (PFP) has detained 17 undocumented immigrants who tried to reach the United States from northeast Mexico, officials said Friday.

        The General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic (PGR) said in astatement that the detention was made late Thursday night in the city of Reynosa in the northeastern Tamaulipas state.

        The undocumented immigrants, including 10 Salvadorians, seven Brazilians and Asians, were taken to the National Institute of Migration (INM) and will be repatriated later.

        Around 7,000 illegal immigrants from Central America are detained in Mexico every year, the INM said.

        The immigrants tried to reach the U.S. border in a variety of ways, many of them dangerous, such as crossing the Texas desert in harsh climatic conditions or being hidden in secret compartments inside vehicles facing the risk of suffocation.