Mexican President Lopez Obrador no longer reaching out to migrants

His name was Wilmer Ramirez. He was two years old and died on May 14 at a pediatric hospital in El Paso, Texas. On May 15, a 10-year-old child died in Ciudad Juarez, across the border between Mexico and the United States. These two young Guatemalans are the faces and victims of the migration crisis that the Aztec country is trying to solve.

Despite the good intentions posted at the beginning of the mandate by the new Mexican president, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (nicknamed Amlo), as regards the reception conditions of migrants, his migration policy has taken a repressive turn. This first death in detention of a migrant minor in Mexico is a first illustration. One figure illustrates this shift: in April 2019, 14,970 people were expelled, against 5,717 during the first month of mandate, in December.

The NGO Amnesty International even sees the beginning of a "disturbing parallelism" between Amlo's migration policy and that of his American counterpart, Donald Trump. According to the Mexican National Institute of Migration (NMI), the number of illegal stops by the Mexican authorities took off 79% in April 2019 (20,564) compared to the same month the previous year (11,486).

North and South, immigration authorities overwhelmed

Mexico's two borders are currently under tension. In the south, hundreds of people cross the Suchiate River, which separates the country from Guatemala, every day. Their number is estimated at more than 300,000 in the first quarter of 2019 by the MNI, three to four times more than in previous years. These undocumented migrants are forced to wait for transit permits, piled up in detention centers.

The National Commission for Human Rights in Mexico (CNDH) has recently denounced the conditions of hygiene and housing in these centers, including Tapachula, on the Guatemalan border where migrants escape massively.

In the north, along the border with the United States, the situation of migrants is hardly more cheering. Asylum seekers are huddled in border towns waiting for the United States to process their case, a consequence of the "Remain in Mexico" policy, demanded by the Trump administration and accepted by the Mexican government in January 2019.

Amnesty International warns: "Mexico's migration services are saturated, detention centers are outdated and the administration is not able to handle all asylum applications", warns Madeleine Penman, specialist in for the NGO in Mexico, interviewed by France 24. "This demonstrates the failure of the Mexican government's strategy: the detention of migrants should be the exception and not the rule."

For the NGO, migrants forced to wait along the border with the United States are very exposed: "Baja California, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas are among the most dangerous regions of the continent," says the researcher from Amnesty International. "Migrants are victims of extortion, rape and even murder."

Good intentions quickly outdated

"When he took office, Amlo promised a change in his migration policy, and in the first few months Amnesty International saw a difference, and the people Amlo appointed to head the MNI and the Refugee experience in the field, "notes Madeleine Penman.

The new president then set up a humanitarian visa system to allow exiles to cross the country legally while creating new accommodation structures to facilitate their reception. Amlo had announced a multitude of agricultural projects aimed at offering work to newcomers. Four months later, humanitarian visas became permits restricting arrivals to areas of southern Mexico, centers are saturated and development projects are slow to come to life.

"With the arrival of the first caravans, the government showed concern for humanitarian solutions, but unfortunately this did not translate into a comprehensive policy to protect migrants. not changed, with detentions without valid reason and expulsions despite the risks in the countries of origin and even before the end of asylum procedures ", laments Madeleine Penman.

The American hand ?

Officially, however, the government's line on immigration has not changed. At the end of April, Amlo just now conceded that he wanted to "order" and "regulate" the streams. To solve this crisis, the Mexican president sticks to the strategy announced during his campaign: to welcome in a humane way the migrants who present themselves and to claim in parallel funds in the United States to develop the southern region of Mexico, one of the most poor of the country, as well as Central America and cut in this way the migratory flow at its source.

>> To read also: "Central America: the reasons for the exodus to the United States"

Jorge Andrade, researcher at the think tank Seguridad y Democracia, interviewed by El Pais, deplores this "lack of clarity". "The government has retreated, possibly because of the United States," he says.

US President Donald Trump regularly criticizes his neighbor's so-called laxity on migration. On May 21, in a scathing tweet of which he is accustomed, the billionaire said again "disappointed that Mexico does not do anything to prevent the illegals to cross the southern border".

... Mexico's attitude is that of people, including Mexico, should have the right to the US & that US taxpayers should be responsible for the tremendous costs associated with this illegal migration. Mexico is wrong and I will soon be giving a response!

"There is a crisis in Mexico but it is partly manufactured, it is the result of the aggressive policies of the Trump administration which has drastically limited access to asylum in his country in defiance of international rules", denounces Madeleine Penman. "Pragmatic and humanitarian solutions exist, especially when we know that the United States is the most powerful and richest country in the world, but the US authorities are managing this crisis well at its border. his safe rhetoric. "

Migrants are caught between the hammer and the anvil and pile up on the northern border. Seeing their hope of legally obtaining asylum faint and the dangers in Mexico, they let themselves be tempted by the illegal and dangerous solutions proposed by the smugglers.

For Madeleine Penman, "there is only one winner: the Mexican criminal networks, whose business has never been better."