translated from Spanish: Arrests of migrants in Mexico 100%

After the US president, Donald Trump, threatened to impose tariffs on domestic products if Mexico does not solve the phenomenon of irregular migration, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came out in defense of migrants ensuring that ” Human beings do not leave their villages out of taste but by necessity. ”
“How to convert the country from fraternity to the migrants of the world into a ghetto where stigmatized, abused, persecuted, expelled and cancelled the right to justice for those who seek with effort and work to live free from misery” , Lopez Obrador questioned Trump in a letter that sent him last May 30 at night, while this Friday 31, at an event in Tlaxcala, insisted that “all migrants deserve respect, understanding and our fraternal hand.”
However, López Obrador’s letter and words contrast directly with what happens on the southern border of Mexico, where civil organizations denounce a harassment of immigration authorities to stop and deport people without documents, in Collaboration with policemen, soldiers and the new National Guard.
This increase in pressure has caused images of the past, especially of the years 2015 and 2016, when following the Plan southern border broke records of deportations thanks to raids on the railroad tracks, roads and roads, to be repeated now, even though the Nu EVO Federal government insists that the approach of migration policy is no longer national security, but of respect for human rights.
But, the president’s words not only contrast with those recurring images, such as the massive raid last April, when INM and police officers detained more than 400 migrants in Pijiiapan, Chiapas, but also with the official statistics of Arrests.
According to data from the National Institute of Migration (INM), at the cut of yesterday Friday, only in May detained 22694 migrants without documents, and deported to 15654.
This last figure represents an increase of 119% compared to May last year, when the INM arrested 10350 people.
And, if compared to the same month of 2017, the increase is still much higher: up to 220%.
In just the first five months of this 2019, the INM detained 74031 migrants, 36% more than last year, and 105% more than in 2017, with April and May when there was an escalation of intensity in the migratory control , as evidenced by another fact: between January and May of this year, the catches were shot 175%. While in the same period last year, it only increased 12%.
As is usual in recent years, since it is a population that is emerging mainly due to gang violence and the ongoing economic crisis, the largest number of migrants detained is from Honduras; Almost 50% of total catches.
As regards returns, that is, deportations of migrants who, after being detained and placed in migratory stations, have already been expelled, the figure of May (15654) also reflects an increase of 80% compared to April 2018.
The National Institute of Migration, on its website, noted that this increase in the statistics of arrests and deportations is because, in the first months of 2019, the flow of Central American people, mainly from Honduras, “rose in a very notable way in Comparison with the trend of the 2018 and previous years “.
“There is no congruence between political discourse and reality “
Claudia León, a member of the driving force against immigration detention and torture, who has just participated in a new civilian observation mission on the southern border, criticized in an interview with Political Animal That both official figures and the findings they documented on the ground support that “there is no congruence between current government discourse and reality.”
Among those findings, Claudia León underlined several.
For example, the mission corroborated to “sharpened” the militarized security approach above the human rights of people in mobility.
“We documented multiple migratory checkpoints with a strong presence of federal police and military police, without clarity of their functions and faculties in the migratory context. We note that it is a systematic and intentional State practice, “the activist said.
This observation also contrasts with the words of the current commissioner of INM, Tonatiuh Guillén, who in an interview with this medium last November, before assuming the position, said that the use of armed forces in tasks of migratory control should be “the exception of very last instance. ”
“From 1 December (last year), the idea is that the police and the army will not intervene in the detention of migrants,” Guillén said.
“And if they do,” the Commissioner pointed out, “Let them always comply with the law.” That is to say, with a trade where they are asked for help in a very punctual way, for a very specific case. In other words, your performance should be the exception, and also the exception of a very late instance. ”
Separate families
Another observation of the civil Mission, in which 24 organizations from Mexico, Central America and the United States participated, is that there are families “that are separated in raids during the arrest, release and deportation”.
“We document that the principle of family unity is being violated, even in those who have applied for the recognition of refugee status,” León pointed out.
And another observation: the detention of migrants has intensified to such an extent that the INM is raiding to capture migrants when they rest in hotels.
This last is in line with the complaint made last May 30 the association of Hotels and Motels of the southern border in the space of the journalist Denise Maerker, where they reported operatives of agents of the INM in coordination with Federal police and the guard To capture migrants who are in transit, or who wait in that place to resolve their status as a refugee applicant.
In addition, Claudia León reported that night raids are taking place in the Central Park of Tapachula, on the border of Chiapas and Guatemala, where migrants who have no money to pay for a hotel, sleep in the street.
As for migrants who are not being detained, the activist added, they are also living “a subhuman and unworthy situation”, as the observation mission documented that there are whole families, with children, living in tents in the Immediate vicinity of the 21ST century migratory station of Tapachula waiting for the migratory authorities to attend.
“It is a strategy of attrition towards migrant populations and asylum-seekers, to tire them and shore them to extremely precarious situations,” said the human rights defender, who concluded by saying that everything they documented in the mission of Observation proves that the government’s discourse to put human rights above the national security approach “is a lie.”
Political Animal He requested an interview with the Commissioner of INM, Tonatiuh Guillén, to question him for any of the findings documented by the observation mission, such as hotel searches. But, at the time of posting this note, there was no answer.
Here you can read the report of the findings of the observation mission.
DHMO – The southern border is U… by on SCRIBD

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Original source in Spanish