How Mexico treats its illegal immigrants

(Hat tip: Diggers Realm) In a word, badly. According to a Mexican human rights organization, illegal immigrants from Central America are routinely mistreated while detained in Mexico. Story from the Arizona Republic.

Mexico's human rights agency has accused officials in Sonora of mistreating illegal Central American migrants, saying detainees were jammed into overcrowded cells and denied food and water for hours during a crackdown last year.

The report comes as the Mexican government, under pressure from the United States, is ramping up efforts to catch thousands of foreigners passing through on their way to the U.S. border, and as migrant rights groups complain authorities are ill-equipped for the task.

Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights said immigration agents "violated (migrants') right to legality, judicial protection and dignified treatment" during a two-week inspection period from April 20 to May 7. Its report was released Jan. 19.

[...]

The report said immigration agents held as many as 78 people in four cells designed for five people each in Hermosillo. Most of the detainees were Guatemalans, followed by Hondurans and Salvadorans.

The commission's inspectors said there was not enough drinking water or blankets to go around, the toilets lacked water, and detainees were forced to sleep on the floors of the cells.

One detainee at the Caborca jail reported that he and six other migrants were denied food and water from 8:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. the next day. The report did not say whether the inspectors confirmed the complaint but did say they had received similar reports from other migrants.

Romero denied the migrants were mistreated.

"During the time of those highway checkpoints, it is true that the number of detainees went up dramatically," she said. "But they were held in those police stations only temporarily and never for more than 12 hours."

The National Human Rights Commission's findings have no legal force, but the publicly funded agency has much prestige, and its reports are taken seriously.

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Many Mexicans empathize with these Central American travelers. But other people, especially in southern states like Chiapas, fear that Central Americans will eventually begin settling in Mexico and taking Mexicans' jobs. They also are worried about crime brought by the Mara Salvatrucha, Central American gangsters who control the immigration routes.

On Dec. 14, new President Felipe Calderón announced expanded security measures to stem the flow of Central American migrants. They include new police task forces along the Chiapas-Guatemala border, an overhaul of Mexico's visa program for seasonal farmworkers, and inspections to make sure Central Americans are in Mexico legally.

I just love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. It's very obnoxious for Mexico to push the United States to legalize the "undocumented", but then try to strongly enforce their southern border. I've about had it with Mexico trying to get into the middle of American immigration policy.