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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005 
Authorities Investigate Claims of Illegal Acts
 The Mexico Herald
| | Demonstraters marched in protest of Border Patrol sweeps in Ontario and Corona last year. The sweeps, which netted more than 400 undocumented immigrants, outraged immigrants’ rights activists and prompted rallies and calls for reform. |
Authorities are investigating reports that 13 Mexican migrants may have been apprehended by U.S. civilians guarding the Arizona-Mexico border against illegal crossers, a top foreign relations official said Monday.
Volunteers for the "Minuteman Project," some of whom are armed, began patrolling April 1 for migrants crossing the Arizona-Mexico boundary, considered the most porous stretch of the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border.
Deputy Foreign Secretary for North America Gerónimo Gutiérrez said he had received reports that 13 Mexicans were "detained and referred to the Border Patrol" by U.S. volunteers.
"We are doing an investigation in each one of these cases," Gutiérrez said. "The Border Patrol of the Tucson sector up to this moment has confirmed that this is not true, but nevertheless we will finish with the investigation."
Fred Elbel, a spokesman for Minuteman Project, said late Monday he didn't know anything about the accusations migrants had been detained improperly.
"I have not heard a thing about that," Elbel said in a phone interview. "Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. But I'm fairly sure that if it had happened with Minuteman Project that I would have heard about it."
The Minuteman Project volunteers claim they are out to identify illegal crossers to U.S. authorities and call attention to the illegal migration issue.
Elbel said project volunteers "do not detain anybody."
"We simply observe," he said. "we look and we report."
But Mexicans commonly refer to the volunteers as "migrant hunters," and officials in Mexico City have been on guard against human rights violations.
Migrants are being interviewed as they are repatriated to Mexico to monitor how they are being treated, Gutiérrez said.
"We haven't so far received any reports of there having been an aggression against Mexican migrants on the part of these people," he said. |
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