Continued Persecution of Migrant Children in Mexico

Spanish version from La Izquierda Diario Mexico, June 16th, 2015

According to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), data gathered from the Customs and Border Protection and the Mexican National Migration Institute, the number of Central American underage migrants detained in Mexico between October 2014 and April 2015 is 92,889, exceeding the US by more than 22,000 detentions.
The Mexican Government’s anti-immigrant policy hardened since the start of the Southern Border Plan, which, as we have stated in prior articles, was approved due to the pressure from the US to stop the increase in the migration of unaccompanied minors from Central American and Mexican.

Hellish transit through Mexico

Several measures have been taken to increase the persecution of migrants in Mexican territory, making the journey a living hell including increasing the number of border patrol agents in more transited areas, creating ways to make it more difficult to board the “Beast” (the train network that transports goods from southern Mexico to the US), and increasing the number of deportations, which in the case of children, during the first months of 2015 reached 51,565. In addition to these difficulties, migrants face dangers outside the law, like kidnappings, murders, rapes and human trafficking, which is made possible by the affiliations that criminal groups have with the government institutions of the Mexican State.
The UN Committee took up the plight of the migrant minors, and conducted a study in Mexico last May. The results of the study warned of the increase in violence towards minors due to the drug trafficking and the “War on Drugs” as well as the extreme vulnerability that many migrants face of begin recruited by groups affiliated with organized crime.

Obama and Peña against migration

While Peña Nieto’s administration has made an effort to appease the Obama administration in relation to the issue of migration by doing most of the “dirty work”, the dangerous journey through Mexico to the US becomes increasing more difficult thanks to the government’s complicity. In addition, it insures the continued persecution of migrants who are not entailed to any labor, political, and social rights.
The so-called “War on Drugs” in Mexico is an excuse for militarization and has strengthened and increased the human and organ trafficking networks, which are highly profitable and to which migrants are one of its main victims., The Merida Initiative, which was implemented in 2008, is the US government’s means of funding the militarization of Mexico. Since it began, the Obama administration has given 2,500 million dollars. In exchange, the Mexican government increased its subordination to US imperialism exponentially, both in migration and economic policies.