Deportation, Detention and Abuse on the Mexico-Guatemala Border
Sunday, 13 September 2015 00:00 By Laura Carlsen, CIP Americas Program |
Report
Undocumented migrants arrive at a ranch where they were transferred into a
pick-up truck along the border between Guatemala and Mexico, July 3, 2014.
(Photo: Meridith Kohut / The New York Times)
Mexico's southern border has become the line of contention of the most
powerful country in the world. The victims of this extraterritorial policy
are Central American migrants who cross every day, seeking to save their
lives and their families from the violence and hunger plaguing their
countries.
For years, and especially in the past year, the U.S. government has claimed
the southern border of Mexico as a strategic area for its national security.
The formation of a regional trading bloc with the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) began a policy of intervention - incorrectly called
integration - in Mexico that was explicitly extended to the area of security
with the Security and Prosperity Partnership in 2005, and culminated in
Merida Initiative in 2008.
Presented by George W. Bush as a plan of "Counterterrorism, Counternarcotics
and Border Security," the Merida Initiative, or Plan Mexico, introduced a
new framework for U.S.-Mexico relations, militarized and securitized and led
by the Pentagon.
The government of Barack Obama, far from reconsidering the ultra-violent
impacts of the drug war strategy in Mexico, inherited the Bush plan and
immediately decided to go further with it. The Obama administration extended
the original three-year, multibillion-dollar Bush version "indefinitely." It
also extended the drug war in the countries of Central America, first with
the Regional Security Initiative for Central America (CARSI), and now with
the Partnership for Prosperity.
Mexico's southern border was included in the plan from the outset. The
original Bush Plan Mexico targeted "flows of illicit goods and persons" and
lists migrant monitoring, bio-data collection, and border control
expenditures, all of which have been appropriated and expanded under the
Obama versions. Since the child migrant crisis of summer of 2014 and the
announcement by the Peña Nieto government of Plan Frontera Sur (Southern
Border), these programs began to receive more attention, and human and
financial resources from both governments.
According to researchers and human rights defenders working at the southern
border, the results are a tragedy for migrants. Salvador Lacruz, of the Fray
Matias de Córdova Center for Human Rights in Tapachula, says that through
this process of "externalization of borders" by the United States, the
northern neighbor "moved its border and turned Mexico into a vertical border
where border control is exercised throughout."
Now, what has migrated but from north to south not south to north - is the
repressive model of border control. After years of witnessing the results of
the infamous wall and the militarization of the northern border that has
killed thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants, the U.S. model
has been transferred further south - to Mexico's border with Guatemala, with
the active support of the Mexican government despite the obvious
implications for national sovereignty.
The crackdown affects the states of Tabasco, Campeche and Chiapas, but above
all Chiapas that has a border of 700 km with Guatemala.
Deportations Move South
After the crisis of unaccompanied children in the United States in the
summer of 2014, the U.S. government pressured President Peña Nieto to stop
Central American migrants in Mexico, well before they reached the U.S.
border. The U.S. government sent resources, training for security forces and
equipment to promote the conversion of the southern border into a trap for
humans.
In Mexico, Peña Nieto announced the plan as if it were his idea in July 2014
as the Southern Border Plan. Previous administrations had begun the process
of militarizing the southern border under other names, but today's draconian
measures are unprecedented. The Mexican government has sent, in addition to
the army, federal, state, municipal and migration police, and some 300 (or
more) members of the Gendarmerie, a new force of military police with the
mission of protecting strategic economic interests.
Official figures reveal that Mexico now surpasses the United States in the
deportation of Central American migrants. Deportations by the Mexican
government rose more than 35% in 2014, to 107,199. So far in 2015, the Fray
Matías Center reports that every month this year there have been levels of
deportations at least 50% higher than the corresponding month of 2014.
An excellent study by the Human Rights Institute of Georgetown Law that
focuses precisely on the conditions for migrant children, which was the
pretext for this phase of militarization of the border, concludes that
children and their families face long periods in detention centers that look
like prisons and lack decent living conditions. In addition, there are no
adequate processes for assessing asylum and refugee cases, and no procedures
required by law are made to determine the best interests of children who
come fleeing their countries. Nor do they take into account the goal of
family reunification with parents living in the United States or Mexico.
The centers report that young people and adults are returned to situations
that threaten their lives - the same situations that forced them to leave
their countries.
Lacruz says that unlike the northern border where efforts are concentrated
at the boundary line, U.S.-Mexico operations in southern Mexico reach far
inland. The two governments are implementing a plan, partly funded by the
Merida Initiative, to establish a series of checkpoints that extends up to
100 miles from the border.
This strategy promotes military/police occupation of the entire border
areaan area rich in mining, agriculture, oil and water resources.
"We believe that they decided to implement this model to curb social
protest, because here in Chiapas and Tabasco and Veracruz, they are planning
many mega mining, oil exploration, wind turbine construction, and other
projects," says Lacruz.
"The planned megaprojects mainly affect indigenous peoples," he says. "And
they know there will be conflicts, that these people fight for their rights.
"
He added that the Alliance for Prosperity proposed by the U.S. government
and the Inter-American Development Bank for the "northern triangle"
countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador would extend militarization
even more, but not to control smuggling. "They need the army to control the
population," he explains.
Human rights organizations as the Fray Matias de Cordova face enormous
obstacles in addressing the accumulation of serious violations on the
southern border. Out of 94,000 detainees in 2014, the center had contact
with only about 400.
The rest, the vast majority, are women, men and children left to their fate,
a destiny marked by a system that has defined them as human castoffs. It
doesn't matter what they have gone through or what they will have to go
through just trying to survive. And this is the response of the governments
of Obama and Peña Nieto to the "humanitarian crisis" of defenseless children
last year.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
LAURA CARLSEN
Laura Carlsen is Director of the CIP Americas Program at
www.cipamericas.org.
RELATED STORIES
Borderland Deaths of Migrants Quietly Reach Crisis Numbers
By Bethania Palma Markus, Truthout | Report
Guatemalan President Resigns in "Huge Victory" for Popular Uprising
By Nermeen Shaikh, Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
Central American "Springs" Foregone
By Cyril Mychalejko, teleSUR English | Report
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Deportation, Detention and Abuse on the Mexico-Guatemala Border
Sunday, 13 September 2015 00:00 By Laura Carlsen, CIP Americas Program |
Report
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reference not valid.
Undocumented migrants arrive at a ranch where they were transferred
into a pick-up truck along the border between Guatemala and Mexico, July 3,
2014. (Photo: Meridith Kohut / The New York Times)
Mexico's southern border has become the line of contention of the
most powerful country in the world. The victims of this extraterritorial
policy are Central American migrants who cross every day, seeking to save
their lives and their families from the violence and hunger plaguing their
countries.
For years, and especially in the past year, the U.S. government has claimed
the southern border of Mexico as a strategic area for its national security.
The formation of a regional trading bloc with the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) began a policy of intervention - incorrectly called
integration - in Mexico that was explicitly extended to the area of security
with the Security and Prosperity Partnership in 2005, and culminated in
Merida Initiative in 2008.
Presented by George W. Bush as a plan of "Counterterrorism, Counternarcotics
and Border Security," the Merida Initiative, or Plan Mexico, introduced a
new framework for U.S.-Mexico relations, militarized and securitized and led
by the Pentagon.
The government of Barack Obama, far from reconsidering the ultra-violent
impacts of the drug war strategy in Mexico, inherited the Bush plan and
immediately decided to go further with it. The Obama administration extended
the original three-year, multibillion-dollar Bush version "indefinitely." It
also extended the drug war in the countries of Central America, first with
the Regional Security Initiative for Central America (CARSI), and now with
the Partnership for Prosperity.
Mexico's southern border was included in the plan from the outset. The
original Bush Plan Mexico targeted "flows of illicit goods and persons" and
lists migrant monitoring, bio-data collection, and border control
expenditures, all of which have been appropriated and expanded under the
Obama versions. Since the child migrant crisis of summer of 2014 and the
announcement by the Peña Nieto government of Plan Frontera Sur (Southern
Border), these programs began to receive more attention, and human and
financial resources from both governments.
According to researchers and human rights defenders working at the southern
border, the results are a tragedy for migrants. Salvador Lacruz, of the Fray
Matias de Córdova Center for Human Rights in Tapachula, says that through
this process of "externalization of borders" by the United States, the
northern neighbor "moved its border and turned Mexico into a vertical border
where border control is exercised throughout."
Now, what has migrated but from north to south not south to north - is the
repressive model of border control. After years of witnessing the results of
the infamous wall and the militarization of the northern border that has
killed thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants, the U.S. model
has been transferred further south - to Mexico's border with Guatemala, with
the active support of the Mexican government despite the obvious
implications for national sovereignty.
The crackdown affects the states of Tabasco, Campeche and Chiapas, but above
all Chiapas that has a border of 700 km with Guatemala.
Deportations Move South
After the crisis of unaccompanied children in the United States in the
summer of 2014, the U.S. government pressured President Peña Nieto to stop
Central American migrants in Mexico, well before they reached the U.S.
border. The U.S. government sent resources, training for security forces and
equipment to promote the conversion of the southern border into a trap for
humans.
In Mexico, Peña Nieto announced the plan as if it were his idea in July 2014
as the Southern Border Plan. Previous administrations had begun the process
of militarizing the southern border under other names, but today's draconian
measures are unprecedented. The Mexican government has sent, in addition to
the army, federal, state, municipal and migration police, and some 300 (or
more) members of the Gendarmerie, a new force of military police with the
mission of protecting strategic economic interests.
Official figures reveal that Mexico now surpasses the United States in the
deportation of Central American migrants. Deportations by the Mexican
government rose more than 35% in 2014, to 107,199. So far in 2015, the Fray
Matías Center reports that every month this year there have been levels of
deportations at least 50% higher than the corresponding month of 2014.
An excellent study by the Human Rights Institute of Georgetown Law that
focuses precisely on the conditions for migrant children, which was the
pretext for this phase of militarization of the border, concludes that
children and their families face long periods in detention centers that look
like prisons and lack decent living conditions. In addition, there are no
adequate processes for assessing asylum and refugee cases, and no procedures
required by law are made to determine the best interests of children who
come fleeing their countries. Nor do they take into account the goal of
family reunification with parents living in the United States or Mexico.
The centers report that young people and adults are returned to situations
that threaten their lives - the same situations that forced them to leave
their countries.
Lacruz says that unlike the northern border where efforts are concentrated
at the boundary line, U.S.-Mexico operations in southern Mexico reach far
inland. The two governments are implementing a plan, partly funded by the
Merida Initiative, to establish a series of checkpoints that extends up to
100 miles from the border.
This strategy promotes military/police occupation of the entire border
areaan area rich in mining, agriculture, oil and water resources.
"We believe that they decided to implement this model to curb social
protest, because here in Chiapas and Tabasco and Veracruz, they are planning
many mega mining, oil exploration, wind turbine construction, and other
projects," says Lacruz.
"The planned megaprojects mainly affect indigenous peoples," he says. "And
they know there will be conflicts, that these people fight for their rights.
"
He added that the Alliance for Prosperity proposed by the U.S. government
and the Inter-American Development Bank for the "northern triangle"
countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador would extend militarization
even more, but not to control smuggling. "They need the army to control the
population," he explains.
Human rights organizations as the Fray Matias de Cordova face enormous
obstacles in addressing the accumulation of serious violations on the
southern border. Out of 94,000 detainees in 2014, the center had contact
with only about 400.
The rest, the vast majority, are women, men and children left to their fate,
a destiny marked by a system that has defined them as human castoffs. It
doesn't matter what they have gone through or what they will have to go
through just trying to survive. And this is the response of the governments
of Obama and Peña Nieto to the "humanitarian crisis" of defenseless children
last year.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Laura Carlsen
Laura Carlsen is Director of the CIP Americas Program at
www.cipamericas.org.
Related Stories
Borderland Deaths of Migrants Quietly Reach Crisis Numbers
By Bethania Palma Markus, Truthout | ReportGuatemalan President Resigns in
"Huge Victory" for Popular Uprising
By Nermeen Shaikh, Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video InterviewCentral
American "Springs" Foregone
By Cyril Mychalejko, teleSUR English | Report
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