Thread: Ciudad Juarez Police criticized for detaining migrants

Ciudad Juarez: Police Criticized for Migrant Detentions

by FNS News

As in the United States, the involvement of local police and military forces in enforcing immigration law is a question of hot debate and growing conflict in Mexico. A report from Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has criticized the Ciudad Juarez municipal police force for detaining migrants, mainly Central Americans.

Posted on July 26, 2007

As in the United States, the involvement of local police and military forces in enforcing immigration law is a question of hot debate and growing conflict in Mexico. A report from Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has criticized the Ciudad Juarez municipal police force for detaining migrants, mainly Central Americans, and turning them over to the National Immigration Institute
(INM) for possible deportation.

Mauricio Farah Gebrara, an immigrant rights investigator for the Mexico City-based CNDH, said that Ciudad Juarez police do not have the legal authority deliver migrants to the INM unless specifically requested to do so by the federal agency. The CNDH official contended that the current practice of routinely turning over migrants to the INM violates the Mexican constitution.

According to Farah, the local police are responsible for approximately 26 percent of the detentions of undocumented migrants in the border city. In many cases, migrants have accused police officers of physical abuse and theft, Farah said. Farah added that legal authority for detaining migrants bases solely on their immigration status rests with the INM or the Federal Preventive Police, which is currently being merged with the Federal Agency of Investigations to form one, unified federal police force. Nonetheless, the Mexican army also detains migrants based on immigration reasons.

In the southern border of state of Chiapas, several Salvadoran, Honduran and Guatemalan migrants have filed three formal complaints with the CNDH this year against Mexican soldiers for robbery, physical aggression and improper searches of women. A Chiapas-based human rights organization, the Fray Matias de Cordova Center, charged that the complaints have not progressed because the CNDH demands "evidence" that the undocumented immigrants entered Mexico.

Despite the CNDH's Ciudad Juarez report, local police officers, especially agents assigned to the downtown sector, have been recently spotted demanding documents from individuals with migrant-like physical characteristics.

Human rights investigator Farah said that he expects to visit Ciudad Juarez within the next several weeks to investigate the issue.

Sources:
-- La Jornada, July 23, 2007. Article by Angeles Mariscal.
-- Lapolaka.com, July 23, 2007.
-- El Diario de Juarez, July 20, 2007.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New

http://www.newspapertree.com/features/1 ... detentions

Mexican officals racial profiling!! No I can't believe that!!


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Mexico should stop all illegals from South America and any other place they are coming from. Don't the el stupido's know that for every one they let through, it is making things worse for mexicans? Keep it up Mexico.