Government Violates Rights of Migrants Held in Mexico Detention Centers Miguel Concha - La Jornada
go to original August 8, 2015

According to Mexico’s National Migration Institute (NMI), migrants held in detention centers total:

   2013: 56,298;
   2014: 127,159;
   2015, from January to April: 32,274.

The states where these actions take place the most are Chiapas, Veracruz, Tabasco and Oaxaca. Why is Mexico seeing a nearly 50 percent increase of detained persons? What are the conditions and the impacts?

According to the report "Rights of Captives", this increase is due, among other factors, to implementation of the Comprehensive Southern Border Program, which the federal government announced in July 2014 as a policy to prevent, by means of actions guaranteeing security and protection, migrants from putting their life at risk by using a freight train [dubbed La Bestia, The Beast] rather than a passenger train, and in order to combat and eradicate criminal groups that violate their [migrants'] rights. The report was prepared by the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in Tapachula; FM3 Paso Libre [FM3 (Mexican migrant visa) Free Pass] in Guadalajara; Casa del Migrante [Migrant House] in Saltillo, Coahuila; IberoAmerican University; the Ig­nacio Ellacuría SJ Human Rights Institute in Puebla; and Sin Fronteras [Without Borders].

Far from documenting improvements in migrants' living conditions - subject, of course, to international protection - what was found in this strategic work of communal civilian monitoring is confirmation of implementation of a migratory policy in Mexico based on the apprehension and expedited deportation of persons. The system provides agile processes for the "ordered control of migratory flows", but it does not differentate situations, nor does it guarantee the exercise and enjoyment of rights. The monitoring also detected the NMI's use, on countless occasions, of such euphemisms as "assurance", "presentation" and "rescue", which mask the reality of the lack of freedom in detention centers.

The report confirms that violations against the right to freedom, due process, participation in in-house administrative proceedings, communication, the family unit [keeping families together], physical and mental health, and decent food and housing, among others, are the rule and not the exception in the treatment the Mexican government gives to those traveling through the country. Testimonies, such as those heard during the report's presentation, state that conditions in the Century XXI migrant station located in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, are no better than prison conditions in the country where migrants are coming from; that is to say, conditions are on par with those experienced by people imprisoned for criminal offenses.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Related: More Than Half of People in Developed Nations Think Their Country Has Too Many Immigrants (The Independent)

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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