In the last four years, reports of missing migrants quadrupled, from 83 in 2017 to 349 in 2021, according to data from the Jesuit Migrant Service’s Search for Missing Migrants (PBPMD) Program in Mexico.
Although in 2020, the most critical year of the pandemic, a drop was recorded again to 89 cases, since 2018 they had grown just over double, going from 83 to 191. In addition, while in the period between 2017 and the beginning of 2021, the SJM-Mexico attended a monthly average of 17 cases of disappearance, from February there was an increase that reached 63 cases in August of last year.
Through the report of attention and documentation to cases, the organization points out that the detention and incommunicado detention of foreigners in migrant detention centers and temporary stays has become in recent years one of the main sources of disappearance, according to its “Report on the disappearance of migrants in Mexico: a perspective from the Jesuit Service to Migrants-Mexico”.
Of the people who have been located, about 75% were detained in these stations, especially in southern Mexico, in Chiapas and Tabasco, the document highlights.
Of the thousand 280 cases of missing persons in a situation of migration that the SJM attended between 2007 and 2021, 53% correspond to the last three years. Among the people reported missing, 22% were born in Mexico and 74% are men, “which allows us to deny the idea that only foreign migrants disappear in Mexico and bet on understanding what are the particular circumstances that lead them to disappear,” the report says.
Almost half (44%) are young people, while in 42% of cases they were adults between 30 and 59 years of age, 14% children or adolescents up to 17 years old, and only 1% older adults. The SJM warns that the disappearance of migrant children and adolescents is a profile that often goes unnoticed when talking about the disappearance of migrants in Mexico.
96% of missing migrants were headed to the United States, mainly Texas and California, and only 4% to Mexico; in contrast, PBPMD data show that 94% of disappearances occur in Mexico, and only 6% in the United States.
In its Report, the SJM-Mexico also documents that the highest number of disappearances took place in the south of the country, particularly in Chiapas (18%), followed by the northern states of Tamaulipas (16%), Sonora (12%) and Nuevo León (10%).
“In cases where the PBPMD was unable to locate the disappeared person, it is presumed that the disappearance may have been linked to the action of organized crime groups or the crossing of people through desert areas or bodies of water located on the border between Mexico and the United States,” the report reads.
When people who migrate disappear, they are mostly sought by direct relatives, mothers and fathers in 36% of cases, followed by sisters and brothers (27%), couples (15%), and cousins, cousins, friends and friends (5%). Meanwhile, the daughters and sons of disappeared persons who are looking for them represent only 2% of the search requests received by the SJM-Mexico, which could be related to the age of the migrants, according to the organization.
The search requests, he adds, were made from all over Central America, but particularly Nicaragua. In Mexico, most come from Chiapas, Veracruz, State of Mexico and Mexico City.
Incomplete records
Neither U.S. nor Mexican government institutions have reliable complete records on the disappearances of migrants in their territory, highlights the “Report on the Disappearance of Migrants in Mexico: A Perspective from the Jesuit Migrant Service-Mexico.”
“As if that were not enough, records also vary considerably from each other regarding the information they collect and how they do so, while databases are not designed to communicate with each other, so duplicate records or records that have already been resolved cannot be tracked,” the document says.
The Mexican Federation of Public Human Rights Organizations (FMOPDH), according to the SJM-Mexico, recently reported that there are at least 2,000 people in a situation of missing migration in Mexico. Both organizations and the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) have estimated that there could be hundreds more not reported to authorities, associations or international bodies.
Meanwhile, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has a record of one thousand 421 personas disappeared in a situation of migration between 2010 and 2020, as well as 223 identifications of skeletal remains, 113 in the United States and 110 in Mexico. The Central American Migrant Movement estimates, for its part, around 80,000 cases of disappearances.
The figures of the Mexican authorities, according to the SJM-Mexico Report, are the ones that most evidence the under-registration. Animal Político published that from 1965 until today, the National Registry of Missing and Missing Persons (RNPDNO) only contemplates 57 missing migrants, and when the category of irregular migratory status is specified, the number drops to 14. Since January of this year, a total of 11 have been registered, but only one when the irregular migratory status is specified. The RNPDNO does not reflect Mexican persons disappeared in migratory contexts.
“There is a great diversity of actors involved in the disappearance of people who transit through Mexico, either by forced disappearance or by incommunicado with their relatives, which makes them disappeared. Both occur, in most cases, multifactorially,” the document explains.
The debts of the Mexican State
In addition to the lack of accurate data on disappearances in the migratory context that occur every day, which are essential to really know the magnitude of the problem, the current policy of the Government of Mexico, based on the containment of the migratory flow, has caused the detention of persons on the move to increase considerably in recent years. except for 2020, when the pandemic began, says the SJM-Mexico.
According to data from the Migration Policy Unit, detentions have gone from 131,445 in 2017 to 307,679 in 2021, which represents an increase of more than double in a period of four years.
“These data are of great importance when studying the disappearance of migrants, since as the SJM-Mexico has documented and denounced based on the cases it handles through the PBPMD, the detention and incommunicado detention of foreigners in migrant holding centers and temporary stays has become one of the main sources of disappearance,” states the organization in its report.
Incommunicado detention has become a common practice, he adds, despite the fact that the Mexican State is obliged to guarantee the fundamental right to communication of detained migrants, as determined by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the Migration Law itself.
The SJM-Mexico recalls the statement of the CED in the recent report of its last visit to Mexico: “Migrants are also a particularly vulnerable group in the face of disappearances. The massacres of San Fernando, Cadereyta and Camargo are just a few examples. We have received information from people who started their migration route and ended up in clandestine graves. Others are illegally deprived of their liberty without communication with the outside world, which would make them missing persons.”
Therefore, the SJM points out that it is urgent to launch a national registry of immigration detentions, publicly accessible, which is also an obligation established in the National Law on the Registry of Detentions, published in 2019. Since then, more than 334,000 migrants have been detained and made available to the migration authority, without the information having been recorded.
“The creation of this registry is urgent, since the Consultation System would allow relatives of missing migrants and those who accompany them in this search to access information remotely about their possible whereabouts in a detention center, or to rule out this hypothesis and take the necessary actions to search for them by other means,” indicates the report on the disappearance of migrants in Mexico.
In addition, one of the main difficulties for families is the possibility of filing a complaint or report of disappearance outside of Mexico, as well as following up on the process. In 2015, the now Attorney General’s Office (FGR) published the agreement by which the Foreign Support Mechanism (MAE) was created, which underwent modifications with the approval of the General Law on disappearance of 2017. Since then, as published by Animal Político, the corresponding new guidelines have not been published.
These should ensure the coordination of five instances: the National Search Commission (CNB), the FGR, the National Institute of Migration (INM), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEAV), as also pointed out by the Foundation for Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law (FJEDD), which during the visit officiatesthe CED to Mexico emphasized that they be issued as soon as possible.
The reports of attention of the MAE imply at least 328 cases of missing migrants, while in the RNPDNO barely pass the 50. “There is still a need to efficiently implement a tool that allows families of missing migrants to make and follow up on reports and reports of disappearance from their countries of origin. The MAE is the means by which these facilities should be granted,” says the SJM.
According to its report, the prevention of the disappearance of migrants is an issue to which the Mexican State is giving little or no attention, despite being an obligation consigned in international treaties. To this end, the updated records of missing and detained migrants are essential as a starting point, as well as the efficiency of the MAE and the issuance of public policies aimed at preventing disappearance.
The SJM dedicates the last part of its report to the challenges in the access of relatives of disappeared migrants to psychosocial accompaniment, because although they generally keep in mind that the farewell can be the last contact due to the risk of disappearance or death, before the fact “they go through a process that wears them down from the moment of loss of contact, during the search process, and until the closure of the search, especially when the person is found lifeless.”
Cases of solitary confinement also generate emotional crises both in the people in a situation of forced migration detained and in the relatives they left behind. “The SJM-Mexico has repeatedly demanded that the National Migration Institute comply with its obligation to allow people who are detained in its immigration centers to immediately communicate with their families,” the report reiterates.
On Tuesday, the INM reported that, after a dialogue table with the XVI Caravan of Mothers of Disappeared Migrants, from Central America, the files of the National Migratory Registry will be opened so that they can verify if any of their relatives appear, as well as those of the INM staff to locate public servants who have extorted; complaints or denunciations in this regard will be followed up, their humanitarian cards will be renewed and a permanent link will be maintained with them.
🗞 | #Comunicado @INAMI_mx provides support to the members of the XVI Caravan of Central American Mothers from Honduras 🇭🇳, El Salvador 🇸🇻 and Guatemala 🇬🇹 that entered Mexico on May 1. https://t.co/4QtmaCBlFw pic.twitter.com/FDg4XDazun
— INM (@INAMI_mx) May 10, 2022
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