Thread: Mexico's other border problem

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Mexico's other border problem
Sunday, August 7, 2005

By MARIA ELENA SALINAS


A group of 15 men and women, mostly from Central America, took the risky trip through the rough waters of the Pacific Ocean on a high-speed boat from the Guatemalan city of Tecún Umán to Puerto Escondido in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Their goal was to reach the United States, find a job and send money back home. They knew it would be a perilous journey, but they never imagined they'd be kidnapped on their way to the northern border.

On the first leg of the journey, their bus was stopped by Mexican federal agents, who detained them after realizing they were in the country illegally. But it wasn't enforcement of the law they were after; they wanted money.

"We offered $400," said Alex, a Salvadoran in the group. But that was mere pocket change to the federal agents. "They wanted $400 for each one of us, and locked us up in a motel room until we were able to get the money wired to a local money-transfer company," recalled Alex.

Facing corrupt Mexican law enforcement agents is just one of the many perils that migrants who try to reach the United States through Mexico have to endure. Human-rights activists have documented cases in which captured migrants were kept for days in inhumane conditions, with no food, water or medical attention. They were denied access to their consular representatives and were many times the victims of physical aggression.

Of course, immigrants en route to the United States are also the targets of unscrupulous polleros (human smugglers) and violent gang members who extort them, beat them or rob them. But you would think that a government that denounces mistreatment of its own citizens at the U.S. border would practice what it preaches.

Just a few weeks ago, during a conference of border state governors, Mexican President Vicente Fox reiterated his concern about vigilantes protecting the U.S. border. In a taped message, Fox demanded respect for the dignity and human rights of migrants.

"Mexico is concerned with the actions of certain civil groups against migrants, respectable and dignified people who have goals in life," he said.

Those goals, however, don't begin in Mexican territory. Some of those respectable and dignified people to whom Fox refers come from different parts of the world. Mexico - which happens to share a border with the United States - is, for many, the only route to follow in their quest for the American dream, but thousands have to live through the Mexican nightmare before reaching it.

There is no exact data on how many migrants cross Mexico's southern border from Guatemala, but it is known that thousands are caught and deported. From January to May of this year, Mexican authorities detained just over 109,000 immigrants who were using Mexican territory to cross into the U.S. More than 90 percent of them were from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and most were men from 13 to 40 years of age.

Mexico does have an official border control program, known as Plan Sur, or Southern Plan, that consists of controlling the border, detaining and repatriating undocumented immigrants to their country of origin. Hundreds of police officers and army and navy personnel aid in the search for undocumented immigrants at the border and keep constant surveillance with checkpoints in several southern states.

Plan Sur, which began in July of 2001, was a result of mounting pressure from the U.S. to help stem the flow of immigrants from other countries.

Obviously, Mexico understands the dimension of the immigration problem in the hemisphere, and while Fox has the right to demand humane treatment of Mexican nationals on the northern border, he should make sure that other migrants who - like Mexicans - are looking for a better life are treated with the dignity that he expects for his own people.

As far as the 15 Latin American immigrants who were held hostage by federal agents in Oaxaca, Mexico, after four days in captivity the agents had to go on a mission and left one man behind to guard them. During one afternoon, while the guard was absent from his post, they managed to escape and board a new bus.

They made it to the U.S. border and then split up before crossing. Most of them are probably somewhere in the United States, if they made it across alive.

Maria Elena Salinas is anchor of Noticiero Univision. Reach her at www.mariaesalinas.com

That's it. THE HELL WITH VICENTE FOX.

After the way he berates Americans for assembling peaceably and then turns around and abuses his own illegal immigrants? We should deport him the next time he comes to America.