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 Editorials | Issues | March 2007 
Mexico's Treatment of Illegals Criticized
 Jeremy Schwartz - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
| | The Suchiate River, which separates Mexico and Guatemala, is crossed daily by thousands. (Nancy Flores/Cox Newspapers) |
Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico — The wide but shallow Suchiate River separating Mexico and Guatemala is no barrier.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America, most hoping to make it to the United States, cross the river on huge inner tubes and enter Mexico on the easiest part of an often hellish journey.
Dennis Enrique Corea, a 17-year-old Honduran, made the passage last week, hoping to travel on to Atlanta, where his aunt lives. But after setting foot on Mexican soil, Corea was confronted by soldiers, who he says stole his money and his aunt's phone number and address.
"It's like they don't know what it's like to suffer," Corea said from a migrant shelter in nearby Tapachula.
Immigration is certain to be a major topic when President Bush visits Mexico this week.
But as Mexican officials vigorously defend the rights of Mexico's immigrants in the United States, Mexico faces criticism of its own treatment of Central American migrants, who often encounter corrupt officials and inhumane conditions.
And Mexico's inability to seal its chaotic southern border has long been a sticking point when it comes to negotiating immigration reform with the United States.
Bush and the new Democrat majority support the kind of immigration laws Mexico would like to see Congress pass.
But before that happens, pressure is mounting on new Mexican President Felipe Calderon to fulfill his vow to fix his country's contradictory laws and bring order to Mexico's borders.
Once illegal immigrants arrive in Mexico, they face an army of corrupt and thieving officials, violent gangs called maras and dangerous rides on top of trains, which maim or kill many.
Mexico detained 182,705 undocumented immigrants in 2006, and the government expects that number to rise to 204,910 this year, after 10,094 were caught in January.
Corea's first attempt at reaching Atlanta was cut short last year when he slipped off a moving train and cut his foot. He was deported to Honduras after going to a hospital.
"I still have panic, but I have to go," he said of his latest attempt.
When it comes to enforcing immigration laws, Mexico is caught between competing pressures, said Carmen Fernandez, an immigration expert at College of the Southern Border in southern Mexico.
On one side is the pressure to stop the flood of Central Americans heading north.
On the other, there are calls to respect the human rights of Central Americans. Officials know any abuse leaves them open to charges of hypocrisy.
"For the migrants that try to cross [Mexico's border], we can't give less guarantees than those we demand for Mexican migrants," said Mexico's immigration chief, Cecilia Romero.
Calderon is expected to announce a series of changes, including an expanded temporary-work visa program for Central Americans and improvements to immigration detention centers, which critics say can be dungeon-like. He already has formed special border police.
But at the top of most migrant advocates' list is changing a 33-year-old law that makes illegal entry into Mexico a crime punishable by up to two years in prison. Not only did Mexican leaders howl when U.S. Republicans proposed similar legislation, but observers say corrupt police often use the threat of prison to demand bribes.
With little money to cross Mexico, a small percentage of the illegal migrants reach the United States. Francisco Aceves, local coordinator of Grupos Beta, the government agency charged with protecting migrants, believes less than 20 percent make it.
For Jose Francisco Gonzalez, a baby-faced Salvadoran father of two, reaching the United States has become a vocation.
Francisco, 24, has spent a quarter of his life attempting to reach Houston and a promised job with his uncle. He's tried at least four times, and last year got as far as Laredo, Texas, before the U.S. Border Patrol caught him.
Unlike Mexican immigrants, who are deposited on the other side of the U.S.-Mexico border, Central Americans face deportation back to homelands thousands of miles away.
Francisco's eyes well up as he remembers the frustration of getting so close to his dream.
"I cried when they picked me up," he said fiddling with hands crisscrossed by scars from cutting sugar cane in El Salvador. "It cost so much effort to get there."
Now he's trying again, but his "trip has been a disaster so far."
Shortly after crossing the Suchiate River on a raft, he was attacked by robbers, he said, who made off with all his money. He walked to a Tapachula shelter, where he is trying to regroup.
He plans on begging or looking for work so he can get enough money for a phone card to call his uncle and ask him to wire more money.
"If God wants me to arrive, then I'll make it," he said.
Perhaps nothing exemplifies the contradictory nature of Mexico's immigration system than Grupos Beta. Although it's part of the immigration agency whose goal is to catch and deport migrants, Grupos Beta is a humanitarian organization, whose members carry water and crackers instead of guns.
For Central Americans traversing the border region, Grupos Beta is often their only friend. On a recent afternoon, Aceves patrolled an isolated section of railroad track notorious for attacks by gang members who prey on migrants.
In 2005, Hurricane Stan wiped out the railroad tracks along the border, so migrants have to walk about 150 miles to the nearest train depot in Arriaga to hop a train north.
Near the tracks, orchards of towering mango trees and groves of ripening papaya belie the danger the crossers face. Aceves comes upon a group of three who try to hide when they see his orange truck.
"It's OK!" Aceves shouts. "We're here to help you. We'll give you food."
The men approach the truck, where Aceves gives them tins of tuna, pamphlets and water and reminds them that only federal agents can demand their documents.
"We invite them to make a complaint against corrupt police, but they're usually too scared and worried that they will get deported," Aceves said. |
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