Mexican Immigration Authorities Impede Humanitarian Aid to Central American Migrants Martha Pskowski - CIP Americas
go to original December 4, 2014

Adrián Rodríguez Garcia and Wilson Castro, who provided food and other aid to migrants in Mexico State were shot to death in their pick-up truck on Nov. 23. The news came as a devastating blow to the human rights community in Mexico. A criminal gang that Rodríguez and Castro had denounced for its assaults on migrants in the town of Tequixquiac, north of Mexico City, fired a round of bullets into the truck, parked outside the home of Rodríguez’s parents. Rodríguez died instantly, and Castro died in the hospital in the early hours of the 24th.

These violent deaths call attention to the risks human rights defenders face in Mexico, especially those who work with Central American migrants. Many of these risks come from Immigration agents themselves. Human rights organizations report that Mexican authorities routinely impede their work. Migrant rights defenders have become more vocal in demanding fair and legal treatment of migrants in Mexico, yet in recent months they have suffered physical attacks, law suits and arbitrarily been prevented from providing legal aid to migrants.

The Plan Frontera Sur, or Southern Border Plan, has further militarized immigration enforcement in southern Mexico and endangered Central American trans-migrants. In response, migrants rights defenders have adopted new strategies, including documenting violations in Immigration enforcement, and directly challenging illegal or unjust detention practices. The National Immigration Institute (INM for its initials in Spanish) has repeatedly victimized Mexicans and foreigners who work with migrants in the states of Oaxaca and Tabasco, leaving unresolved the contradictions in immigration enforcement, and the pervasive corruption of Immigration officials. Activists question whether the actions against them are retaliation on the part of Immigration officials.

The Mexican Immigration Law, reformed in 2011, is innovative in many respects and extends broad protections to migrants in the country, including the many Central Americans who traverse Mexico on their way to the United States, referred to as “trans-migrants.” But INM officials systematically violate the letter of the law, and migrants often do not get the protection they are legally entitled to.

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