Tensions Between Migrants and Mexican Community Force Shelter Closings Mayela Sanchez - Global Press Institute
go to original December 10, 2012

Illegal migrants rest on a railway line in Huehuetoca, Mexico.

MEXICO CITY – Tensions with the local community have caused three shelters to close in recent months, including San José de Huehuetoca last month.

The shelter closed for security reasons after a confrontation between people identified as members of the transnational criminal gang Mara Salvatrucha and human traffickers, according to a release from Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano, one of the civil society organizations that operated the shelter. The organization is not satisfied with responses to its requests for a stronger municipal police presence at the shelter and throughout the town in order to ensure the safety of migrants and volunteers amidst rising tensions in recent months. Shelter representatives are now asking for federal authorities to intervene before it would reopen.

Saulo Rubén Jiménez Leal, subsecretary for the government of Mexico state, responded in writing to Global Press Institute that municipal and state police guarded the shelter until it closed, and the government has not received reports of the presence of gangs or aggressions. The state government guarantees humanitary assistance to all migrants, he wrote.

In the neighboring town of Tultitlán, the social resentment of undocumented migrants by local citizens forced the closing of two shelters in July and August.

The first shelter to close was Casa del Migrante San Juan de Dios in the neighborhood of Lechería, a mandatory transit point for undocumented migrants from Central America and South America. All cargo trains coming from southern Mexico converge here, carrying dozens of migrants en route north.

Casa del Migrante San Juan de Dios had offered migrants clothing, food, and a place to wash up and rest since 2006. But the large influx of migrants frequently exceeded the shelter’s capacity, which bothered Lechería residents.

During July 2012, a fight broke out between neighbors and migrants outside the shelter. Local tensions led muncipal authorities to close it.

Residents of the area blame migrants for the insecurity that has swept the neighborhood during the past two years.

Read more at Global Press Institute

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