NGOs accuse Mexico of human rights violations against migrants

1205

Mexico “is being complicit in human rights violations” to migrants and asylum seekers by supporting the actions implemented by the United States government to stop migration, such as the expulsion of people under Title 42, who are transferred via to the south of the country, where they are taken to the border with Guatemala, said more than 50 organizations and activists

In a public letter addressed to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and to the heads of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, and Government, Olga Sánchez Cordero, as well as to the commissioner of the National Institute of Migration (INM), Francisco Garduño, they indicated that in In the last eight days, they have registered more than six flights from the United States that arrived in Tabasco, Chiapas, Morelia, and Mexico City, with between 200 and 300 people.

They indicated that once in Mexican territory they are later taken by the National Migration Institute (INM) and the National Guard to the border with Guatemala, “leaving them to their fate without any legal procedure or the possibility of seeking asylum in Mexico.”

Alma Migrante, Legal Assistance for Human Rights, Institute for Women in Migration, Sin Fronteras IAP, among others, stated that measures of this type “far from protecting migrants and asylum seekers, place them in dangerous situations. and it forces them to resort to more sordid routes and to inflate the coffers of the traffickers ”.

They pointed out that the testimonies of the people who have been expelled from the United States to Mexico “have narrated how when they got off the plane they were taken by the INM to the border with Guatemala to cross, without being informed of their right to request asylum in Mexico or to regularize their immigration status, in addition to not having any document that shows that they are expelled by the US government ”.

Neither, they added, are there any interventions by the Attorney General’s Offices for the Protection of Girls, Boys, and Adolescents to determine their superior interest as established in the General Law on the matter.

The organizations reported that the Mexican government “agreed to participate in the implementation of Title 42 as of March 21, 2020, just one day after the US government announced it and that it promised to receive 100 people expelled per day from different countries. Central Americans, with the exception of that population vulnerable to Covid-19, such as pregnant women, childhood, and adolescence ”.

However, they highlighted, “we have documented how in the flights there is a significant percentage of these populations as well as different nationalities from those committed”.

They recalled that yesterday the Secretary of Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, indicated in a conference that the strategy of sending people on flights to different states of Mexico is to make it more difficult for them to try to cross into this country again. “An alarming statement because it not only places on your government the responsibility of protecting the life of that population but also makes it an accomplice of violations of the right to asylum, the principle of nonrefoulement and accepts the outsourcing of the border of the United States government”.

In the letter, they stated that the Mexican government has already demonstrated “that it can rectify, so we cannot repeat what happened with more than 72 thousand people returned to Mexico under the ‘Stay in Mexico’ Protocol or MPP, in force from January 2019 to January 2021, which placed them as cannon fodder for kidnappings, extortions, abuses of authority, violations of rights, precarious living conditions, and death ”.

Against this background, they asked the federal government not to repeat “the same mistakes and to allow incalculable impacts on the physical and emotional health of those who flee their country to save their lives.” They called for a reconsideration of Mexico’s participation “in actions contrary to our Constitution.”

Source: jornada.com.mx

Mexico Daily Post