{"id":6578,"date":"2018-06-18T00:45:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T04:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6578"},"modified":"2018-06-18T00:45:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T04:45:42","slug":"mexico-seeks-to-become-country-of-refuge-as-us-cracks-down-on-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6578","title":{"rendered":"Mexico Seeks to Become \u2018Country of Refuge\u2019 as Us Cracks Down on Migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mexico has been doing the U.S.\u2018s ‘dirty work\u2019 on immigration for too long, says the front-runner in the country\u2019s July 1 presidential election. AP Photo\/Eduardo Verdugo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mexico is often considered a transit country for migrants. It\u2019s the territory Central Americans must cross to get to the United States.<\/p>\n

But many generations of migrants have made Mexico their home. From 1930s-era Spanish Civil War exiles<\/a> and Jewish WWII refugees<\/a> to South Americans<\/a> escaping military dictatorships throughout the 20th century, Mexico has welcomed successive waves of immigrants.<\/p>\n

In 1948, during the drafting<\/a> of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights \u2013 the founding document of the international human rights system \u2013 Mexican delegate Pablo Campos Ortiz advocated for a \u201cvery broad conception\u201d of asylum. Seconding a Lebanese proposal, Campos Ortiz said the world should recognize \u201cnot only the right of seeking asylum but also the right to be granted asylum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asylum rights<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mexico and Lebanon lost that debate.<\/p>\n

The 1951 Convention for Refugees<\/a> and subsequent agreements require that signatory countries offer asylum to migrants who can prove they have a \u201ccredible fear\u201d of certain kinds of persecution. As demonstrated by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions\u2019 recent exclusion<\/a> of domestic abuse as grounds for asylum<\/a>, they are not obliged to accept all applications.<\/p>\n

Mexico provides an exception to that rule \u2013 in law, if not in practice. It took almost 60 years, but in August 2016, a Campos Ortiz-inspired amendment to the Mexican Constitution<\/a> recognized migrants\u2019 right to seek and be granted asylum. The amendment proposal<\/a> called Mexico a \u201ccountry of refuge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next year, Mexico City approved a local constitution<\/a> declaring itself a sanctuary city where authorities will \u201cprevent, investigate, sanction and offer reparations for human rights violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a human rights scholar<\/a> and immigrant, I have watched Mexico\u2019s 2018 presidential election season closely. Would any candidates take a page out of Donald Trump\u2019s playbook and demonize Central American migrants<\/a> for political gain?<\/p>\n

Migrants in the presidential election<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite an official commitment to the rights of migrants, Mexico has recently followed the U.S.\u2018s punitive lead on immigration.<\/p>\n

Between 2007 and March 2017, the U.S. government invested<\/a> US$1.5 billion in the M\u00e9rida Initiative<\/a>, a U.S.-Mexico partnership officially intended \u201cto fight organized crime and associated violence while furthering respect for human rights and the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, however, M\u00e9rida Initiative funds have gone toward enhancing Mexican immigration enforcement<\/a>. At the urging of the Obama administration, in 2014 Mexican President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto launched an aggressive arrest and deportation program along its southern border<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
The U.S. has funded Mexico to increase enforcement along its southern border with Guatemala. AP Photo\/Rebecca Blackwell<\/figcaption><\/figure>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Programa Frontera Sur targets<\/a> Central American migrants attempting to cross Mexico. U.S.-trained Mexican immigration officials use American-funded surveillance towers and biometric data equipment to control the southern Mexican states<\/a> of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tabasco.<\/p>\n

Nearly 40 percent of Central American migrants entering Mexico are fleeing violent attacks or threats<\/a> back home, according to Doctors Without Borders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Mexican authorities still routinely force<\/a> people to return to dangerous conditions, Amnesty International reports<\/a>. This practice, known as refoulement<\/a>, is illegal under domestic and international law.<\/p>\n

Despite Trump\u2019s Twitter claims<\/a> that Mexico has done \u201cnothing at stopping people\u201d from coming to the U.S., the Frontera Sur program has proven effective. Between 2014 and 2015, Mexican deportations of Central American migrants \u2013 primarily Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans \u2013 more than doubled, from 78,733<\/a> in 2013 to 176,726<\/a> in 2015.<\/p>\n

During the same period, detentions of Central Americans along the U.S. border fell by half<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Walking the walk<\/strong><\/p>\n

From restrictions on asylum claims to mass deportations, the Trump administration\u2019s draconian immigration policies<\/a> may actually push Mexico closer to becoming the \u201crefuge country\u201d it claims to be.<\/p>\n

According to a 2017 study<\/a> by the country\u2019s National Human Rights Commission, around 20 percent of 1,000 Central American migrants surveyed while passing through Mexican territory have now decided to stay in the country. Border Patrol detained some 351,000 people attempting to cross illegally into the U.S. in 2017, down from 600,000 in 2016.<\/p>\n

That has made migrants a hot topic in the lead-up to Mexico\u2019s July 1 general election<\/a> \u2013 but not in the way that might be expected. Presidential candidates have largely been largely sympathetic to their plight.<\/p>\n

During the second presidential debate<\/a>, which aired on May 21, an audience member from the border city of Tijuana asked the four candidates how they would improve Mexico\u2019s \u201coutrageous\u201d treatment of undocumented Central Americans.<\/p>\n

Front-runner Andres Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, from the Morena party, answered that he would stop doing the U.S.\u2019s \u201cdirty work\u201d on immigration if elected.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador proposed instead an \u201calliance for progress\u201d between the U.S., Mexico, Canada and Central America to foster regional job creation, economic development and security, thus reducing the need to migrate. He did not explain how he would persuade Trump to join.<\/p>\n

Candidate Ricardo Anaya, who heads an unusual left-right alliance<\/a> between the progressive Revolutionary Democratic Party and the conservative National Action Party, said Mexico must be the \u201cmoral authority<\/a>\u201d on immigration. It should treat Central American migrants the way Mexicans would like to be treated in the U.S.: justly and humanely.<\/p>\n

Even Jos\u00e9 Antonio Meade, from President Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s Revolutionary Institutional Party, acknowledged that criminals, economic migrants and victims of violence are different groups of people and should treated as such.<\/p>\n

Rebuking Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a rebuke to a Trump administration policy of separating migrant children from their parents<\/a>, Meade added<\/a> that unaccompanied minor migrants should be offered special health services and legal protection.<\/p>\n

Not even independent Jaime Rodr\u00edguez, a political renegade who once suggested that Mexico could fight crime by chopping off drug traffickers\u2019 hands<\/a>, has taken a hard line on immigration. He proposed making the southern state of Chiapas a \u201cMexican California<\/a>\u201d \u2013 evidently meaning a place where low-paid migrant workers would help drive the local economy.<\/p>\n

None of the candidates attacked migrants in a populist bid to win votes.<\/p>\n

But none addressed the gap between Mexico\u2019s treatment<\/a> of Central American migrants and its \u201crefuge country\u201d status, either.<\/p>\n

\"TheFor the next president, complying with Mexico\u2019s new humanitarian law will mean passing policies that truly take migrants\u2019 rights seriously<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Luis G\u00f3mez Romero<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong.<\/a> This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexico is often considered a transit country for migrants. It\u2019s the territory Central Americans must cross to get to the United States. But many generations of migrants have made Mexico their home. From 1930s-era Spanish Civil War exiles and Jewish WWII refugees to South Americans escaping military dictatorships throughout the 20th century, Mexico has welcomed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/223245\/original\/file-20180614-32342-88zmhr.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-borders-commerce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6580,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578\/revisions\/6580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}