Migrant Ombudsman an Imperative

Violent acts against migrants are on the rise. Alejandro Solalinde, a priest and director of the Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers on the Road) migrant shelter in the state of Oaxaca, had to leave the country after threats against his life.

The thousands of migrant women and girls who work as field hands in the north of Mexico and within the U.S. agricultural sector face a high incidence of violence and sexual harassment in the workplace. Very few cases are reported for fear of either reprisals or dismissal. It is a desperate and humiliating situation.

Human rights violations are rife in both Mexico and the U.S. The problem seems to have the Mexican government paralyzed. The migration issue is merely political rhetoric, while nothing is actually done that demonstrates any real interest in the problem.

According to research carried out by Rene Martin Zenteno of the Northern Frontier College, every year the U.S. deports more Mexicans than it receives in immigrants. In 2011 border crossings into the U.S. were fewer than the 350,000 migrants deported that year. The flow of migrants in search of the American dream has slowed in response to a shrunken U.S. economy and the toughening of anti-immigration policies, to the extent that border crossings dropped to under 350,000 last year from over 700,000 in 2008. The number of deportations did not fall in the same proportion, however, as the Northern Frontier College study indicates: The figures show a drop from 500,000 to 350,000 deportations over the same period.

The Mexican Interior Department’s Bulletin No. 27/09 of Oct. 21, 2009 states that according to a study carried out by the National Population Council, 41 out of 50 U.S. states enacted laws related to immigration in 2008, and that seven out of ten of those laws were restrictive in character.

In such an anti-immigration climate, it is becoming increasingly difficult for community organizations to defend the human and labor rights of undocumented workers. The Mexican government cannot and must not succumb to the situation, primarily because one of its key functions is to guarantee people’s safety and protect its citizens wherever they happen to be. Renouncing this duty means renouncing a basic obligation of government.

Alternatives are needed in order to halt the conflict and the prevailing atmosphere of political and social intolerance. The flow of migrants also has been abruptly restrained by the implementation of drastic measures totally incompatible with the good relations that ought to exist between neighboring countries and business partners. Among these measures are the mass deportations across a very different section of the frontier from the one the migrants originally crossed — this most often affects children, who have to survive on the streets or work in subhuman, exploitative conditions in the frontier towns — together with depriving migrants of the most basic services and the building of a frontier wall, held to be necessary in the interests of national security. These days the migrants seem to be treated worse than the drug traffickers.

All of this is politically unacceptable and requires a prompt solution. A political solution that comes from state institutions as well as the migrants themselves, not just via traditional diplomatic channels, but through institutional and moral pressure, expressly designed to defend the political and legal rights of Mexicans abroad. Thus, the creation of a migrant ombudsman is needed.

The authority to be created will have to stand firm in the defense of migrants, be able to target and attend to their specific needs, advance a process of political dialogue within society to clearly define the migration issue and encourage the development of projects that play a part in the search for solutions. Rather than being considered merely the object of policies, migrants must be seen as political subjects who can speak for themselves and deserve to be listened to, heeded and supported.

Given the fact that migration is a phenomenon throughout the continent, this new authority could even promote the creation of a hemispheric agenda on the issues of migration, internal displacement and places of refuge, in order to generate proposals for the solution of concerns common to the countries of the Americas.

The above arguments justify the creation of a specialized authority which could play a part in defending the human rights of Mexican migrant workers in the U.S. Moreover, if the Mexican government has voiced its concern for the rights of its citizens in other parts of the world, it must begin at home by safeguarding the rights of any person passing through Mexican territory.

All migrants, citizens and noncitizens alike, who are subjected to abuse of authority in Mexico, must have recourse to an institutional body that guarantees their safety and all the rights they are entitled to enjoy as human beings.