In a meeting with diplomats from various Central American countries yesterday, Mexican Senate president Manlio Fabio Beltrones promised to draft new immigration legislation that will protect and guarantee the human rights of undocumented migrants in Mexico. The new legislation proposes to resolve issues not yet addressed by current law including protections for migrants who witness crimes, higher penalties for human trafficking and increased access to health, legal and financial services. These changes are directed toward undocumented immigrants who have already settled in Mexico as a means of normalizing their status.
Estimates are that approximately 300,000 Central Americans travel through Mexico on their way to the United States annually. Mexican authorities apprehend and deport less than a third of those undocumented migrants. At the same time, the systematic abuse of undocumented migrants is on the rise in Mexico with reported assaults and kidnappings increasing in recent years including the most recent murder of 72 undocumented migrants last August by drug cartels.
Mr. Beltrones’ proposal was met with praise by the ambassadors and consuls from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. Speaking on behalf of the Central Americans, Ambassador Hugo Roberto Carrillo of El Salvador thanked the Mexican authorities for their efforts on behalf of undocumented migrants while noting that transgressions against migrants were being perpetrated by both Mexican authorities, in overly aggressive efforts to control the flow of immigrants, and by organized crime. Despite this announcement, human rights activists and the United Nations demanded that the disappearances of migrants and past abuse of migrants to date be investigated and resolved.