MEXICO
JOINT SUBMISSION TO THE WORKING GROUP ON ARBITRARY DETENTION IN PREPARATION FOR ITS MISSION TO MEXICO IN SEPTEMBER 2023
ISSUES RELATED TO IMMIGRATION DETENTION
The Global Detention Project (GDP) and the Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova (CDHFMC) are pleased to provide the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) this joint submission in preparation for the WGAD’s visit to Mexico in September 2023. This submission concerns the detention of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. It addresses situations that mainly fall within the scope of the WGAD’s Category IV of types of arbitrary detention: “when asylum seekers, refugees or migrants are subjected to prolonged administrative custody without the possibility of administrative or judicial review or remedy.”
To assist the WGAD in undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the situation concerning arbitrary deprivation of liberty in Mexico, this submission describes the migration context in Mexico and provides a summary of relevant migration-related legislation and the facilities where non-citizens are detained.
1. CONTEXT AND KEY CONCERNS
Mexico has one of the largest immigration detention systems in the world, employing several dozen detention centres—euphemistically called estaciones migratorias—and detaining hundreds of thousands of people every year.[1] While the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the country to temporarily release many immigration detainees, annual detention numbers continue to increase exponentially, reportedly surpassing 300,000 adult detainees in 2022,[2] driven by surging numbers of migrants and asylum seekers fleeing Central America, mandatory detention practices, pressure from neighbours to the north to stop trans-migration, and Mexico’s growing militarisation of its borders and immigration enforcement procedures.
An indication of the migratory challenges facing Mexico is the sharp rise in immigration enforcement “events”—a term used to denote both people sent to detention centres (presentados) and children placed (canalizado) with the child welfare agency—which grew by nearly 250 percent between 2019 and 2022, reaching approximately 445,000 in 2022. In 2022 alone, Mexico apprehended no fewer than 126,000 migrant children, who were “channelled” into centres operated by the National Agency for Family Development (Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familias, or DIF).[3]
Also impacting Mexico’s immigration detention practices has been the United States, which has put increasing pressure on its neighbour to curb the number of people arriving at the U.S. border from Central America. U.S. limits on the number of people who can claim asylum, including those introduced during the Biden administration, have led to growing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers being stuck in border towns, leaving them acutely vulnerable to abuses.[4]
Mexico’s response to these pressures has been to tighten restrictions and broaden the range of actors involved in migration enforcement, spurring accusations that it is its militarising migration policy. The country has passed laws that provide national security agencies with migration enforcement roles, including the National Guard,[5] a role previously reserved only for Mexico’s migration agency, the National Migration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migration, or INM). It has also adopted plans that include deploying tens of thousands of armed forces to the northern and southern borders, which have become increasingly involved in detaining migrants and asylum seekers.[6] Reports from civil society observers allege numerous human rights abuses by these forces.[7]
As the migration situation in Mexico grows increasingly fraught, so too do the dangers that migrants face, particularly those in detention centres, many of which are notorious for their paltry, dehumanising conditions and repeated reports of abusive treatment from guards. In one recent tragic case that garnered global attention and opprobrium, some 40 migrants and asylum seekers burned to death in March 2023 at a detention centre in Ciudad Juarez, on the border with El Paso, Texas, when guards abandoned the facility after a fire started, leaving the detainees padlocked in their cells.[8]
Aggravating the situation in Mexico is that the government has taken steps to block accountability of its treatment of detained migrants and asylum seekers, including preventing NGOs from accessing detention centres. This has prompted one observer to describe these centres as “black boxes.”[9] With little or no transparency mechanisms or judicial control of detention practices, detention often exceeds constitutional limits and can even be extended indefinitely if the person files a legal recourse to defend their rights, as established in section V of Article 111 of the Migration Law.[10]
One reason for blocking civil society access to detention centres may be the terribly deficient state of many centres and the degrading or inhumane treatment that detainees often face in them. A report from civil society oversight body of the INM, the Consejo Ciudadano del Instituto Nacional de Migración, describes instances of violence and excessive use of force by National Migration Institute personnel; lack of access to information, legal assistance, or due process rights; overcrowding; and poor sanitation.
There have been numerous reports of extortions, harassment, assault and sexual abuse, and corporal punishment, verbal and physical aggressions such as electroshocks and choking.[11] In a joint submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review in advance of Mexico’s review in early 2024, a coalition of civil society organisations reported that between 2006-2021, there were 117 known cases of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment of people confined on Mexico’s immigration detention centres at the hands of agents of Mexico’s immigration service, the National Migration Institute.[12]
Importantly, Mexico continues to place migrant children in detention situations that represent clear breaches of its commitments under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, including the best interests principle. The law establishes that the National Agency for Family Development (DIF) is responsible for identifying children in need of international protection. It created a Child Protection Authority tasked, among other responsibilities, with conducting best interest determination procedures and to protect children’s rights. However, observers have repeatedly reported that the DIF system to receive children at Social Assistance Centres (CAS) is severely limited and effectively amounts to detention.[13] In response to this, the INM has set up spaces known as “Channelling Offices,”’ which are an extension of the detention centres, where it has been documented that they are held in worse conditions as adults at the facilities.[14] As a result, more than a hundred thousand children were placed in a form of de facto, mandatory detention at CAS facilities in 2022, where they were forced to wait for between several hours and several weeks to either be transferred to a public shelter, given a humanitarian visa, or be deported.
Also, there are concerns about the welfare of migrants and asylum seekers who may be confined in informal camps or other ad hoc settings, which may be operating outside any legal framework or proper oversight. Of particular concern are de facto detention sites along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. There have been growing concerns in this regard since March 2023, after the INM began closing provisional detention centres, which are under the monitoring protocols of the Mexican Human Rights Commission, in the wake of the deadly fire at the provisional detention centre in Ciudad Juarez. Observers report that migration authorities in the southern state of Chiapas subsequently began holding migrants and asylum seekers in tents or vehicles located in border regions, where they could wait long periods of time before being transferred to cities that were in some cases hundreds of kilometres away.[15] Media reports indicate that as of June 2023, there were no fewer than ten roadblocks along the border operated by the INM and the National Guard that had informal holding camps nearby, many of which were uncovered leaving migrants completely exposed.[16] In all these cases, there is a lack of information about whether the detentions are being recorded in an official register, whether there is any form of official oversight, or whether detainees are being provided information about their rights.
[1] Global Detention Project, “Immigration Detention in Mexico: Between the United States and Central America,” February 2023, https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/immigration-detention-in-mexico-between-the-united-states-and-central-america
[2] UPMRIP (2019; 2020; 2021; 2022), Annual statistical bulletin. Unidad de Política Migratoria, Registro e Identidad de Personas. https://goo.su/ky4wkT; see also: Amnesty International, “Mexico: Fatal fire in migrant detention center is result of inhumane policies,” 29 March 2023, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/mexico-fatal-fire-immigration-detention-cinhumane-policies/
[3] UPMRIP (2019; 2020; 2021; 2022), Annual statistical bulletin. Unidad de Política Migratoria, Registro e Identidad de Personas. https://goo.su/ky4wkT
[4] https://www.rescue.org/press-release/irc-laments-news-nearly-40-people-dying-fire-migrant-detention-center-ciudad-juarez
[5] IBERO (2023), Stance on the migration context in Mexico in 2022. Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City. https://goo.su/1gkTYv
[6] SEGURIDAD (June 20, 2022) Safety Report, Slide 53. The Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection. https://goo.su/xIPeCW
[7] ProDH center, IBERO, COMDH (June 14, 2022) Three years from the deployment of the National Guard in the borders, organizations present to the SCJN amicus curiae about the risks of the militarization of the migration policy. [Press release]. Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, Universidad Iberoamericana, Colectivo de Observación y Monitoreo de Derechos Humanos en el SE Mexicano https://goo.su/QCYyD
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/29/mexico-migrant-facility-fire-deaths-ciudad-juarez
[9] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-migrant-detention-centers-inhumane-conditions-fire-rcna77068
[10] INFORME DE ORGANIZACIONES DE LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL EN RELACIÓN AL CUARTO CICLO DEL EXAMEN PERIÓDICO UNIVERSAL (EPU) DEL ESTADO MEXICANO
[11] IDHIE (January 2022) Lives in Containment: Deprivation of Liberty and Human Rights Violations in Migration Stations in Puebla and Tlaxcala, 2020-2021. Instituto de Derechos Humanos Ignacio Ellacuría SJ https://goo.su/b2E3; CNDH’s Recommendation 122/2022 regarding the case of a migrant man detained in the Migration Station of México City, who was tortured by National Institute of Migration agents and the police inside the station, CNDH (June 27, 2022); Recommendation No. 122/2022 About the case of human rights violations to personal integrity and security, in aggravation of V, a person in the context of migration of Salvadoran nationality, housed in the migratory station in Mexico City. National Human Rights Commission https://goo.su/dThdx
[12] INFORME DE ORGANIZACIONES DE LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL EN RELACIÓN AL CUARTO CICLO DEL EXAMEN PERIÓDICO UNIVERSAL (EPU) DEL ESTADO MEXICANO
[13] KIND and CDHFMC, “The Invisible Wall: Obstacles to Protection for Unaccompanied Migrant Children along Mexico’s Southern Border,” July 2019, https://supportkind.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Tapachula-report-FINAL-7-26-19-002.pdf
[14] INFORME DE ORGANIZACIONES DE LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL EN RELACIÓN AL CUARTO CICLO DEL EXAMEN PERIÓDICO UNIVERSAL (EPU) DEL ESTADO MEXICANO
[15] More information about these informal detention sites is avaialble from Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova A.C.
[16] Noticias Chiapas, “INM mantiene a migrantes en espera en campamento improvisado,” 2 June 2023, https://nvinoticiaschiapas.com/chiapas/02/06/2023/60143/
