Lawmakers attended Tapachula, Chiapas, to visit the immigration center where the government keeps foreign citizens detained seeking to reach the US.
Deputy Porfirio Muñoz Ledo described as a “shameful mockery” the visit made by legislators to the facilities of the 21st Century Migration Station.
Even guards told us they had closed public parking lots. The journalists were left out. The treatment they give them is very doubtful. We interview more than 100, mainly Haitians. They are mistreated, mainly children, ”he said at a press conference.
A delegation of federal deputies attended meetings today with representatives of the National Migration Institute (Inami) , visited the 21st Century Migratory Station and held meetings with the Mexican Commission for Assistance to Refugees (Comar) in Tapachula, Chiapas, to verify the conditions in which migrants who enter illegally into national territory and are detained.
The Morena legislator called the Migration Office “the ugly soul of the government.”
“It’s a disaster this visit, it’s a mockery. They didn’t want us to photograph with a cell phone. They were hostile, rude, did not accept our authority and hid something we already know: Migration is the black hand of the government. Now as trumpitos, because they are Trump’s allies. ”
Prior to the visit, Muñoz Ledo said that Mexico does not have to pay attention to the United States on immigration policy.
“Mexico has fought about 80 years in favor of migrants moving to the United States, it has protected its nationals. Now, the United States has long been insisting that, as they cannot seal the northern border, we close the southern border on our own. Mexico does not have to pay attention to them; It is a very delicate matter. We are obliged by the Constitution of the country and by international treaties to let migrants pass, with registration, verifying that they are not criminals or are not wanted by police, ”he recalled.
For the dean of federal deputies the treatment that is being given to migrants is hypocritical by the Mexican government.
“There is a hypocrisy that we will try to discover now. Hypocrisy It’s not that the Mexican government doesn’t want to, it’s doing the dirty work of the Americans. It has always been done… but covertly, ”he said.
MEXICO, THE UNEQUAL TREATMENT
The voices that raise against the treatment that Mexican migrants receive in the United States have further debated the tight immigration policy of President Donald Trump.
However, Mexico also has migrants with whom it deals on a daily basis. Does the Mexican government really treat illegal migrants as it asks Mexicans to be treated outside the national territory?
The answer is no.
In the temporary shelters of the DIF, in Tapachula, there is no place for the more than 15 thousand migrants who roam the city
“I’d rather pay to be left alone (…) It’s like paying a living rent” & nbsp;
– Martha
Illegal Immigrant from El Salvador
The official treatment of migrants who are deported from Mexican soil is sometimes as humiliating as that of Mexicans expelled from the United States. The example is materialized in the southern border of the country, where illegal African, Middle Eastern, Central American and Caribbean immigrants are treated without considering their human rights.
The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) itself has recognized the mistreatment of illegal migrants in Mexico.
Just last month, that instance issued recommendation 68/1027, addressed to the commissioner of the National Institute of Migration (INM), Ardelio Vargas Fosado, “for violation of the human right to the dignified treatment of people in the context of international migration, housed in the migratory station of Mexico City ”.
Not for nothing, Mexico is located as the third most dangerous region in the world, in the transit of migrants, barely surpassed by the Mediterranean Sea region and the area of Sudan, Libya, and Egypt, where only in 2016, 4,899 people died in their attempt to reach the European coasts, as referred by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the United Nations Organization (UN).
According to the international migration agency, at the end of 2016 in Mexico, 578 transboundary undocumented immigrants died or disappeared, between Sonora, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Veracruz, Chiapas, Tabasco, and Puebla, who would have been in transit from Central America to the US border United.
But there are many more who are mistreated, threatened, deported without any guarantee of their human rights, activist priest Alejandro Solalinde acknowledged.
It is a true via crucis lived by transcontinental migrants, from Central America and the Caribbean, who cross through Mexico, bound for the United States, said Solalinde, who lamented that the Mexican government does not lead by example.
I should treat migrants on Mexican soil, as our illegal brothers in the United States are treated,” he said.
The founder of the migrant shelter “Hermanos en el Camino”, in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, lamented the double standards of the Mexican government, which he described as “insensitive” to the migratory crisis that exists within its territory and to which, the State He has responded with a police siege that has only translated repression and violation of human rights.
And while the Mexican government issues a firm position of respect for the conditions of treatment of Mexican migrants and offers “the necessary resources so that they are always prepared, know the legal resources at their disposal, develop an emergency plan and, in definitive cases, have a safe return ”, in Mexico, the treatment of migrants points in another direction.
Vulnerable migrants
According to CNDH recommendation 68/1027, migrants detained by the National Migration Institute (INM) in Mexico are subjected to inhuman conditions.
During their detention in the migratory stations of Mexico City, there is overcrowding, as up to 672 migrants are housed in areas that have a capacity for 434 people.
This is the smallest of the illiciencies that illegal migrants receive on Mexican soil, since Indigo Report was able to document cases of extortion, mistreatment, vexation that elements of the INM do on the Tapachula border, where the most vulnerable groups are those that come from Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Return, Never
Martha is Salvadoran. He arrived in Mexico fleeing the violence of his country. His eldest son was killed by a policeman linked to the Mara Salvatrucha gang, “just because he didn’t want to be recruited into gangs.”
He entered Mexican soil illegally and for five months he is still looking for ways to get his legal residence.
It has cost him a lot to stay in the country; not only for the waiting time, but mainly for the payment of bribes to “police” (INM officials) who offer him not to disturb her and not deport her in exchange for 500 pesos a week.
She has no income of her own, but a portion of what she receives in financial aid from a religious organization goes to the payment of bribery.
“I’d rather pay to be left alone,” he says with resignation. Then, between sobs, take a deep breath: “the return, never.”
She knows that if she is returned to El Salvador, death awaits her there.
“It’s like paying an income for living,” she says more serenely. She is not willing to throw all that has had to happen to reach Tapachula.
She tells that to get to this part of Mexico, after crossing through Guatemala, she lived the unspeakable: she was kidnapped by the Guatemalan national police, a gang of the Mara Salvatrucha held her for two days until a relative paid “the ransom” of 200 dollars and already in Mexican soil “the police” also charged him 100 dollars to let her reach the center of Tapachula.
Finally she said that it went well.
Other women, young women, not only were charged, but also forced to spend the night with some of their kidnappers, both in Guatemala and in Mexico, he says.
Martha took refuge in a shelter of a religious organization, where she is given a roof, food and a thousand pesos a month, which is barely enough to pay those who extort her.
‘Nobody invited them to Mexico’
Lidia is Cuban. He entered Mexico through the border with Belize. Fortunately, she and her boyfriend, Uriel, have not had to fight organized crime. No one has extorted them, but he regrets the despotic treatment they are given at the Tapachula immigration station, where, shouting, an INM officer explains “the rules” of his country.
The official is haughty. He shouts to them what is the procedure to follow to obtain a temporary residence permit. He warns them that all applicants will be investigated, together with their country’s embassy in Mexico, “and if they don’t turn out to be who they say they are … then they leave my country.” Speak as if you own Mexico.
Lidia shakes her head, holds on tight to her baby of less than two years. Contains tears and swallows courage. The INM official keeps talking: she reminds the almost 50 Cubans who wait outside the Tapachula immigration station, that “nobody invited them to Mexico” and therefore has to be subject to the provisions of Mexican laws if it is who want to process the application for a legal and temporary stay in Mexico.
The INM officer, no more than one 1.60 meters tall, looks – through her glasses – with suspicion at migrants; he reminds them, in an almost military tone, that, within the immigration station, during the term of the requested permit process, “they will have to abide by the rules. They will eat only what they are given and no one will be entitled to anything. ”
“It’s like going to jail,” says Lidia almost to herself. Uriel places his hand on his left shoulder as if to give him the strength that seems to slip through his eyes. Destiny is uncertain, but they are willing to face it.
“If this is Mexico, which is a friendly country, what will the immigration process be like in the United States?” Lidia asks as if looking for an answer in the reporter.
Official assistance services by the three levels of government for illegal migrants arriving at the border of Tapachula, Chiapas, are crowded.
In the temporary shelters of the state and municipal DIF, there is no more room for the more than 15 thousand migrants who roam the streets of this city.
Therefore, all those who knock on the doors of these institutions in a request of humanitarian aid are referred to other temporary shelters that are supported by non-governmental organizations, mainly by churches that operate in the area and offer assistance for the love of neighbors.
It is the volunteer brigades of temporary shelters such as those of the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center, Mexico Mission Giving Love, Life and Hope Hostel, Belén Hostel and Jesus the Good Shepherd of the Poor and Migrant Shelter, which conduct tours through the urban area of Tapachula, to deliver water and food.
Other volunteer brigades, such as those of the Human Rights Committee Fray Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada and Hogar de la Misericordia, go further: they cross the border area of El Talismán to verify that the arrests of migrants entering Guatemala are within the legality of the INM officials; the most recurrent cases are to confine them.
It is estimated that the 15 temporary non-governmental shelters operating in Tapachula provide assistance to at least 30 percent of illegal migrants who have arrived in Chiapas in the last 2 months, which according to an INM official could be more of 36 thousand people, mainly from Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Source: reporteindigo.com, politica.expansion.mx
The Mazatlan Post
