Abuses Surge in Mexico's Migrant Crackdown, Say NGOs
Human rights violations against migrants in Mexico have surged since the government launched an operation last year to curb illegal crossings at the country's southern border, non-governmental organizations said Wednesday.
The Frontera Sur (Southern Border) operation was launched in 2014 to stop illegal crossing at the southern border with Guatemala following a surge of unaccompanied migrant children arriving in the United States.
Authorities apprehended 168,280 migrants between July 2014 and June 2015, a 73 percent increase from the same period year earlier, when 97,254 were caught, the groups said in a report released in Mexico City.
"This increased enforcement has prompted an upsurge in human rights violations against migrants," said the document prepared by eight Mexican advocacy groups along with the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S.-based policy organization.
"Abuses have been documented in these migration operations, which are increasingly conducted in conjunction with security forces," the report said.
Migrant shelters have reported kidnappings, extortions, robberies and abuses throughout the country.
Last year, authorities participated in one out of every five crimes against migrants, the report said. Federal police were involved in nearly 30 percent of those cases, followed by municipal police (22.8 percent) and state police (7.4 percent).
The Frontera Sur operation "has meant violations of human rights, the virtual closure of borders, the massive apprehension and deportation of migrants," Father Tomas Gonzalez, a priest who runs a migrant shelter, told a press conference.
Despite the creation of a specialized prosecutor's office, there is "no evidence" that victims of crimes and rights abuses have effective access to justice, the report said.
In the southern state of Oaxaca, there were only four sentences against perpetrators of crimes against migrants even though 383 complains were received in a four-year span.
The governmental National Human Rights Commission received 1,617 complaints between December 2012 and June this year, but it only issued four recommendations to remedy the problems.
Source: Agence France Presse
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