{"id":16462,"date":"2016-04-06T22:18:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T03:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/?p=16462"},"modified":"2019-03-26T09:34:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T15:34:31","slug":"english-mexico-tortures-migrants-and-citizens-to-slow-flow-of-central-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/?p=16462","title":{"rendered":"[:en]Mexico tortures migrants and citizens to slow flow of Central Americans[:]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mexico tortures migrants \u2013 and citizens \u2013 in effort to slow Central American surge<\/h1>\n
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A growing number of indigenous Mexicans are being detained by agents looking for Central American migrants, amid a crackdown driven partly by aid from US<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ju\u00e1rez<\/div>\n

Esther Ju\u00e1rez, 15 and her sister Amy, 24. Photograph: Nina Lakhani<\/p>\n

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Nina Lakhani<\/a> in Ocosingo<\/p>\n

Monday 4 April 2016 12.10\u00a0BST6 <\/a><\/p>\n

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Amy and Esther Ju\u00e1rez were edgy with excitement as they boarded the bus full of seasonal workers heading for a farm at the other end of Mexico<\/a> from their home in the poverty-stricken southern state of Chiapas.<\/p>\n

Although their brother Alberto,18, had made the same journey the previous year, it was the first time Amy, 24, and Esther, 15, had left the tiny indigenous community where they had grown up.<\/p>\n

But about half-way there, immigration agents boarded the bus, and after checking all the passengers\u2019 papers, ordered the three siblings to get off.<\/p>\n

The officials accused them of carrying false documents and lying about their nationality. Then they told the youngsters that they would be deported to Guatemala<\/a>, a country none would have been able to place on a map.<\/p>\n

The baffled youngsters \u2013 who speak the Mayan language Tzeltal but very little Spanish \u2013 were transferred to an immigration holding centre in Queretero CITY.<\/p>\n

Alberto, 18, was taken into a separate room by four agents who told him that unless he signed documents admitting he was Guatemalan, would die there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne pushed me, another was kicking my leg, and a third who was very fat gave me an electric shock here, on the back of my right hand,\u201d Alberto told the Guardian through a translator. \u201cI really thought I was going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three siblings were held for eight days before a lawyer from an activist group filed a legal complaint and eventually secured their release.<\/p>\n

A growing number of indigenous Mexicans are being detained and threatened with expulsion by immigration agents looking for undocumented Central American migrants.<\/p>\n

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Mexico’s migration crackdown escalates dangers for Central Americans<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The trend comes amid a crackdown on migrants<\/a> driven in part by political pressure and financial aid from the US. Deportations have already risen exponentially since summer 2014 when Barack Obama declared the surge in Central American child migrants a humanitarian crisis. Campaigners say that Mexico migration officials are running a secret quota system to increase the number of expulsions.<\/p>\n

Activists say that Mexico\u2019s National Immigration Institute is increasingly operating like an unchecked police force \u2013 and say that that like the country\u2019s security forces, it appears to be systematically using torture against detainees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe order appears to be to detain Central Americans at any cost, even if that means violating the constitution, picking up people based on racist criteria and detaining and deporting Mexican indigenous youth along the way,\u201d said Gretchen Kuhener, director of the Institute for Women in Migration (IMUMI), which launched legal action to secure the siblings\u2019 release.<\/p>\n

Kuhener added: \u201cThis case demonstrates the power and impunity of the National Migration Institute. They can get away with it because it impacts highly vulnerable populations who may not speak Spanish, don\u2019t know their rights, and are unlikely to complain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ju\u00e1rez family live amid the picturesque rolling hills in eastern Chiapas, where all seven children \u2013 aged six to 24 \u2013 help their parents eke out a living from a few plots of land.<\/p>\n

Food is plentiful, but money is scarce, and to top up their incomes, thousands of people, many of them indigenous, travel by bus from Chiapas and other southern states to work on farms in northern Mexico.<\/p>\n

In Chiapas, casual farmhands earn 60 to 80 pesos (\u00a32.40 to \u00a33.20) a day cutting coffee, whereas last season Alberto earned 200 pesos (\u00a38) a day harvesting squash, watermelons and tomatoes in the northern state of Sonora.<\/p>\n

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ugh the brush after capturing them near the Mexico border near Rio Grande City, Texas. Photograph: John Moore\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gently swinging in a hammock, Alberto said his first time away from home was thrilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked hard, but went out every evening. I tried hamburgers for the first time, and there was electricity where we lived. When I came home after seven months, I bought a horse with the money I\u2019d saved. This year I wanted to buy motorbike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Encouraged by Alberto\u2019s stories, his sisters and Esther\u2019s boyfriend Fernando, 27, also signed up when the contractors returned looking for workers. All four asked not to be identified by their real names, for fear of reprisals from the Mexican authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to have my own money so I could buy my own clothes at the market, maybe some earrings,\u201d said Amy, 24. \u201cBut even as we got on the bus, I had a bad feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The privately contracted bus left on 2 September 2015 at 2pm from the local petrol station. The following afternoon, at a tollbooth just south of the border with Queretaro state, immigration agents boarded the bus.<\/p>\n

Mobile immigration teams were introduced as part of the crackdown \u2013 known as the Southern Border Plan \u2013 launched amid US pressure to stop Central American migrants reaching its border<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although immigration officials do not carry weapons, they often work closely with armed private security officers, police officers and soldiers. The joint units have been aggressive in their attempts to stop northward migration, raiding bus stations, motels and buses, and stopping migrants from boarding the freight train known as the Beast, which was once a major route through southern Mexico.<\/p>\n

The scale of US financial support for Mexican immigration control is opaque. At least $100m has been spent or pledged for training, new equipment and canine teams, according to Congressional Research Service. There are no human rights conditions attached to this aid. Department of Defence aid is separate and unknown. The INM said it has \u201cnever received a peso\u201d from the US<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After being held at the roadside for several hours, the Ju\u00e1rez siblings were driven to the immigration centre. Officials confiscated their belongings, including a cellphone and documents (birth certificates, social security numbers, electoral registration) which the officials insisted were fake.<\/p>\n

Esther, 15, said the experience was terrifying. \u201cThey kept saying we were Guatemalan, and we kept telling them no, we\u2019re from Chiapas but they wouldn\u2019t believe us and became angrier and angrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday 4 September, after being kicked, pushed and given an electric shock, Alberto signed documents he couldn\u2019t read admitting he was Guatemalan.<\/p>\n

Agents told them they would be deported to San Marcos, a poverty-stricken city in western Guatemala. Incredibly, a Guatemalan consul issued certificates \u201cconfirming\u201d their nationality.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlberto couldn\u2019t stop shaking, we were all crying. How would we return home to Chiapas when we don\u2019t even know where Guatemala is?\u201d added Esther.<\/p>\n

Esther\u2019s boyfriend Fernando, who was accused of being a people smuggler but not detained, managed to find help. The IMUMI lawyer arrived on 6 September, and filed a legal complaint, and after eight days, the trio were released.<\/p>\n

Their ID documents were not returned because they could not pay the \u00a38 (200 pesos) bribe demanded by officials.<\/p>\n

A specialist psychologist and doctor from the Mexico City Human Rights Commission concluded \u2013 in a report seen by the Guardian \u2013 that Alberto had suffered serious physical pain and post-traumatic psychological symptoms as a result of being tortured.<\/p>\n

Carolina Jim\u00e9nez, deputy director of research for the Americas<\/a> at Amnesty International, said: \u201cWe have documented a truly disturbing pattern of very serious human rights violations against migrants travelling through Mexico. But seeing immigration officials involved in torture against Mexican nationals to make them \u2018confess\u2019 they are migrants takes this disturbing situation to a whole more sinister level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concern over the conduct of immigration agents is rising. Advocacy groups were dismayed when Ardelio Vargas, a highly controversial police figure, was named head of INM in January 2013. Vargas was in charge of federal forces when peasant protests in the town of San Salvador Atenco were violently repressed by police in 2006.<\/p>\n

Alejandro Mart\u00ednez, former head of Central American migrants\u2019 issues at the INM, said Vargas runs the institute like a police force.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest mistake was to mix police and immigration. [The case of the Ju\u00e1rez siblings] makes me even more certain that illegal quotas within the institute are driving the exponential rise in detentions. It doesn\u2019t matter how agents do it, as long as they meet the quotas.\u201d<\/p>\n

INM categorically denied the use of quotas. But the huge surge in detentions and deportations is undeniable. In 2015, 190,000 people were detained by INM agents \u2013 120% more than in 2013.<\/p>\n

It also appears Mexican nationals with a particular profile are being caught up in the swell.<\/p>\n

The National Commission for Human Rights (known in Spanish as the CNDH) recently investigated 15 similar cases<\/a> \u2013 including at least eight other victims from Chiapas \u2013 and found 22 immigration agents violated multiple rights.<\/p>\n

The victims were detained on buses or on the street solely based on their \u201cphysical features, clothes and appearance\u201d. Some were detained for several weeks before convincing officials they were Mexican.<\/p>\n

The INM said agents are legally permitted to request identification from anyone.<\/p>\n

According to the INM spokeswoman, the Ju\u00e1rez siblings were detained because Fernando said they were Guatemalan, and the sisters\u2019 ID papers raised concerns they could be human trafficking victims. Their detention was prolonged by IMUMI\u2019s legal challenge, she said.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cIt\u2019s impossible that anyone could be tortured at an immigration station because they are permanently monitored by the CNDH, international organisations like the Red Cross and NGOs. If he [Alberto] was tortured, why not report it at the time, why wait till later?<\/p>\n

\u201cAs in all cases of possible abuse there will be an investigation and if we find any evidence of excessive force, those responsible will be reported to the competent authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawsuit over the case is still ongoing, but whatever its outcome, the episode has shattered the dreams of the Ju\u00e1rez sibling. Amy and Esther say they will never leave their community again because it is simply too dangerous.<\/p>\n

Alberto muses over the future while watching his elegant white mare grazing with her chestnut foal. He had big dreams of building his own house with electricity and internet, and he still wants that motorbike.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go north again to work, but I keep thinking about what they did to me. It\u2019s best that I stay here.[:]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[:en] Mexico tortures migrants \u2013 and citizens \u2013 in effort to slow Central American surge A growing number of indigenous Mexicans are being detained by agents looking for Central American migrants, amid a crackdown driven partly by aid from US Esther Ju\u00e1rez, 15 and her sister Amy, 24. Photograph: Nina Lakhani Nina Lakhani in Ocosingo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[16,58,53,30,545,87],"class_list":["post-16462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-ciudades-rurales","tag-derechos-humanos","tag-justicia","tag-migracion","tag-pueblos-indigenas","tag-represion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31031,"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16462\/revisions\/31031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiozapatista.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}