Human rights defenders and migrants described this Monday as “illegal” and “inhumane” the increasing operations that the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM) is carrying out in the desert on Mexico’s northern border.
EFE documented an arrest in the middle of the highway that goes from Chihuahua to Ciudad Juárez, bordering El Paso (Texas), where a man said he came dehydrated and with his entire family after more than 400 kilometers of walking through the desert.
“Help me God. Where we’ve been walking from, man. Hey friend. Come on, come on, let me go with my son, I want to go with my classmates. “My brother, let me go with my children, my lady,” said a migrant, who could not share his identity, intercepted by an INM agent. The officer simply stopped him, held him still, and told him that he would reunite him with his family, who were also being pursued by two other officials.
Arrests are “illegal and unconstitutional”
The lawyer specialized in migration Ernesto Vasconcelo told EFE that the persecutions and arrests carried out by the INM on the roads, buses and airports are “illegal and unconstitutional”, and force foreigners to face dangerous routes such as the desert.
Vasconcelo, a Venezuelan immigrant who arrived in Ciudad Juárez more than two decades ago, studied law and specialized in migration, maintained that the INM violates the Constitution, the Migration Law and international agreements.
“Immigration does not have the power to make an arrest on a highway, at a checkpoint, because it would be restricting the right of every person to be able to transit the entire national territory without the need for specific documentation,” said the lawyer.
Operations continued in Chihuahua
Meanwhile, anti-migrant operations continued in the northern state of Chihuahua, bordering the United States. The local newspaper El Heraldo de Chihuahua reported this Monday that INM and National Guard agents set up a checkpoint on the highway to Ciudad Juárez to detect migrants.
Meanwhile, “along the road, Immigration units patrol in search of people walking on the shoulders,” the newspaper added.
Last week, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued a recommendation to the INM “after accrediting violations of the human rights to legal security, freedom, legality, as well as due process” during the detention of two Venezuelan migrants in Chiapas, a southern border state.
The autonomous government body reported that the INM detained Venezuelans and other migrant families who were traveling on public transportation.
Lawyer Vasconcelo argued that the INM has the obligation to control the entry and exit of foreigners in the country, but only at the ports of entry and, when a person is already within the national territory, the agents must respect human rights, like free movement and not being bothered.
Vasconcelo asked the CNDH and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to monitor the actions of the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador with the migrants.
“An immigrant would not have to walk a road with extreme temperatures, exposing his life, his health, the lives of his children, his integrity,” he said.
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