Mexico: UN and NGOs warn of increased militarization against migrants

Civil organizations and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Felipe González, warned this Tuesday of the “Exponential increase” in militarization against migrants transiting through Mexico to the United States.

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While in 2019 there were 8,715 members of the Armed Forces in migratory tasks on the northern and southern borders, the figure more than tripled by April 2022, to more than 28,500, indicated the report “Under the boot” of the Foundation for the Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law (FJEDD).

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Although the phenomenon is not new, “there has been an exponential increase in said militarizationespecially from the signing of migratory agreements that have been promoted by the United States and accepted, specifically, by Mexico,” said Ana Lorena Delgadillo, director of the FJEDD, when presenting the investigation.

the wall of mexico

The report accused the Government of Mexico of becoming a “military wall against
migration”, while the United States has “externalized its border”.

“I have been to Mexico numerous times, I have seen how it has been expanding
the general militarization of public policies and especially, in a particularly serious way, in the context of migration policies and practices,” said the UN rapporteur.

As an example of this, the report documented the presentation of at least 354,367
migrants before the National Migration Institute (INM) between January 2021 and March
of this year.

Of this number, 149,168 were stopped in Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca, border states or close to Guatemala, which represents 42% of the total.

The UN rapporteur stated that “immigration detention should be a last resort”for which he denounced “a distortion between human rights and security”.

The international official celebrated the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice
of the Nation (SCJN), which last week declared unconstitutional the migratory revisions that attempt against free transit.

In addition, he recognized the 2020 immigration reform that prohibits the INM from detaining minors in immigration stations.

“The truth is that this is an abuse that various Mexican governments have been committing for a long time, but in fact there are a huge number of boys and girls detained for migratory reasons in Mexico. So they are not over,” González said.

Migrants under violence

The report also cites that in the last decade more than 70,000 migrants were victims of trafficking and kidnapping in Mexico, based on the Special Report on the Situation that Keeps Trafficking and Kidnapping to the detriment of Migrant Persons
in Mexico 2011-2020, of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH).

Although Other estimates from the investigation point to around 20,000 migrants being kidnapped each year.

Most of the cases occur in Chiapas and Tabasco, on the border with Guatemala;
in Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, on the border with Texas, and in Veracruz, the Gulf state
of Mexico that connects the south with the north of the country.

The victims come mainly from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba.

The Mexican case “is especially pressing” due to the “very serious levels of violence faced by migrants in an irregular situation,” argued the UN rapporteur.

“There are numerous, very common episodes of trafficking or smuggling of migrants, for which, of course, irregular migration is fertile ground,” González said.

INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from Eph.

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