Thread: Mexico: The deportation conveyor belt

Mexico: The deportation conveyor belt

Mexican immigration officials are overwhelmed with cases and lack of funding, leading to the risk of new deportees from the US giving the border another try.

By Southern Pulse Network staff (13/08/08)

Mexico's National Immigration Institute (INM), the governmental organ responsible for investigation illegal immigration and enforcing Mexico's immigration laws, is underfunded, poorly manned, and full of corrupt officials, according to the head of the INM, Cecilia Romero Castillo.

In a recent interview with Mexico's Processo news magazine, Romero claims her organization simply cannot keep up with the growing number of illegal and documented migrants that enter Mexico on a yearly basis. Human trafficking, she claims, is a "juicy business" supported by INM officials that have been in place since November 2006.

"We are advancing a series of investigations to identify a networks of traffickers. And when I speak of networks, I'm referring to an arrangement between foreigners and Mexicans, and within the group of Mexicans I have no doubt that some migration agents and officials with INM are involved," Romero told Processo.

One group, called the Miami Mafia, specializes in trafficking Cubans into the US through Mexico. According to reports from Mexico's Attorney General's office, this organization may earn as much as US$80 million a year. In other cases, human traffickers have charged as much as US$4,000 a person to move them from Guatemala, through Mexico, and into specific points inside the US.

The INM has some 4,600 employees between migration agents, investigators and mid- to high-level officials. And for many years, the number of employees has not risen to keep pace with the growing number of people passing through Mexico's various ports of entry via land, sea and air.

"In 2000, the country had 23 airports and now there are close to 100," Romero admitted, adding, "The most worrying is that INM now has less employees that it did in 2000."

One in five or six illegal immigrants make it through and remain in the US, Processo reports.

"In the state of Tamaulipas, which is a very complicated situation, there are only 240 employees, and they are not enough to cover 11 international bridges, five airports, two sea ports, apart from migration stations," Romero said.

Tamaulipas has long been the stronghold of Mexico's Gulf Cartel, and a major trafficking point for any illegal product - human, drug or otherwise - that flows into the US from Mexico.

Meanwhile, INM must document and receive all those Mexicans deported from the US apart from preventing the passage of illegal immigrants through Mexico.

The organization's Countryman Program oversees this process, and has two separate initiatives for children and minors who are deported from the US unaccompanied by adults.
Between January and May 2008, some 300,000 Mexican nationals were deported from the US, nearly 2,000 a day, placing the 2008 tally at over 1 million.

When considering the complex situation of immigration inside the US, and the current focus on deportation, the above facts should place a light on a larger reality: many of the people who are deported back to Mexico simply cannot be processed by the INM.

The trouble within Mexico's INM is just one of the many reasons why a number of Mexican analysts consider the movement of people between Central America, Mexico and the US to literally be like a human conveyor belt. Once deportees arrive, its likely they are shuffled through a haphazard layer of backed up paper work, resulting in a high probability of human error. And once repatriated, what's to stop them from returning?

Until the INM receives better funding, reduces corruption, and increases the number of personnel required to cover the country's various ports of entry, deportation as a tool for controlling illegal migration in Mexico or the US is, at best, a mechanism that keeps the conveyor belt moving.

This article originally appeared on the Southern Pulse Network.

http://oneoldvet.com/?p=7702

THE TROUBLE WITH MEXICO IS THAT THEIR CORRUPT LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS TAKE BRIBES TO LET CRIMES OCCUR. THAT IS WHY THE ENTIRE COUNTRY HAS SLID INTO CHAOS. AS LONG AS THEY HAVE THE ATTITUDE THAT BREAKING LAWS IS NO BIG DEAL, THEIR COUNTRY WILL BE CORRUPT AND UNSTABLE.

Duplicate Post Zeezil posted this earlier at

http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-127820-0.html