It's going to be okay...Mexico is going to take care of those who must go back. -translated article from La Raza


Calderon announced programme of assistance to returnees

They were given food, medical care and work along the border

Gardenia Mendoza Aguilar
Correspondent La Opinion

MEXICO City - The president Felipe Calderon assured that from 2008 Mexicans who are repatriated from the United States will receive food, shelter, medical care, telephone to communicate with his family and work temporarily in the border area.

Everything will be part of the repatriation programme Humana, which start as a pilot in Tijuana and will be extended gradually to other cities in the northern border strip.

"Repatriation Human ensure a dignified and humane treatment to half a million Mexicans who are deported each year," promised yesterday by the agent during his tour of the state of Baja California and in the framework of the International Day of Migration.

The program will be coordinated by the National Migration Institute (INM) with support from local councils, state governments, non-governmental agencies, the group Beta and entrepreneurs.

The private sector added to the scheme helps a traditional novel: the opportunity to work for up to six months in the area, either to not return empty-handed to their places of origin or as an opportunity to grow in Mexico.

"They may formally validate the knowledge acquired through their work experience in the United States," Calderon stressed in announcing the project, he said, was designed based on the experience of institutions dedicated to the care of the issue of migration.

Ismael Estrada, spokesman for the City of Tijuana, noted that this border area has an economic growth of 5% per year, well above the national average and this is largely due to migration flows.

"The maquiladora industry and tourism will surely accommodate much talent that is not valued on the other side" she said.

According to the Ministry of Economic Development local Tijuana in 2006 received a direct investment of 565 million dollars. It currently has 56 industrial parks that are home to 901 maquiladoras and 565 other domestic and foreign drafts.

For all these reasons, the governor of Baja California, Guadeloupe Osuna, acknowledged yesterday that many migrants are staying in Baja California for their own development capacity, "we know of these lands by international migration and the internal."

The rest of the border is also promising: between Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Sonora and Tamaulipas contributing 36% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and are affiliated with the Social Security at 28% of all workers in the country.

The version of the humanitarian programme announced yesterday by the Executive in Mexico responds to actions taken since 2003 by the Border Patrol of the United States that implemented on a unilateral basis, the operating Lateral Repatriation called.

Since then were detected irregularities that violated provisions in the Agreements for the Safe and Orderly Repatriation of Mexican, signed in 2001. ????

Among the allegations were reported separation of families, repatriation of large groups of migrants; flaws in the consular notification; repatriations in inappropriate times; repatriation of minors and foreigners to Mexican territory and complaints for lack of food.

However, in Mexico, the deportees were not well treated. In recent days, border mayors complained of the lack of resources to care for more than one million paisanos, calculated, would come to the region to the hardening of anti-immigrant politics in the American Union.

The pilot program Repatriation Humana in Tijuana aims in principle that the hostel of the Integral Development of the Family (DIF) provides basic services for migrants, who once on the streets of his country's border were forced to wander and ask alms to survive.

Thus, Calderon called for a dignified treatment for them and the farmers who visit the country: "Migrant workers, beyond their nationality or their immigration status, are men and women with dreams and aspirations who deserve humane treatment," he said .

He had previously indicated that the contribution of Mexican immigrants "creates benefits for the economy [American] and the income of their employees who are estimated at more than $ 30000 per year." © La Opinion

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