Hermanos en el camino

The National Institute for Immigration (Instituto Nacional de Migración, INM), responsible for repatriating illegal migrants, has been subject to an inquiry because of alleged corruption and possible offences during kidnapping operations. According to reports by the Department of Public Prosecution of Oaxaca, Father Solalinde declared that these attacks were due to corruption and complicity by the state authorities with organised crime, and that traffickers had approached him to work with them rather than try to rescue migrants. As in the countries of the Gulf, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, also intervened. After the umpteenth case of extortion and kidnapping – this time of 40 people on board a train near Oaxaca, including 10 women and a child, in January 2011 – the Commissioner publicly demanded ‘an extensive and transparent inquiry into the alleged mistreatment and abuse of migrants by the Federal Police and staff of the INM’. The agency received so many reports of the violation of human rights that in April 2011 the government dismissed seven top executives, suspected of collusion with criminals. In May Calderón wanted a new law on immigration that would protect those crossing the country better and punish officials involved in cases of corruption more severely. The government was given credit for this measure by several parties, but in view of the distance there is in Mexico between a text and its application, the law alone does not seem enough to improve and reduce the dangers.

The new Mexican President, Enrique Peña Nieto, called for renewed debate on the ‘drug war’ but said that the government should focus more on reducing violence and less on catching cartel leaders or stopping drugs from reaching the United States. Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, was elected in mid-2012 amid accusations of vote-buying. Running into drug cartels is not the only risk to be found on the border between Mexico and the United States. The US journalist Margaret Regan has collected harrowing stories of those trying to cross the desert to the North West on the border with Arizona. There migrants place their trust in the coyote, traffickers, who have no hesitation in abandoning them at the first sign of border police or if one of the travellers cannot keep going.