Advocacy Groups Say CentAm Migrant Detentions in Mexico Up Sharply in 2015 The Associated Press
go to original November 18, 2015

Mexico: The Rising Deportation of Central American Migrants (teleSUR English)

Mexico detained 73 percent more migrants since the announcement of an operation to shore up security on its Southern Border, according to a study released Wednesday by human rights and migrants' advocates groups.

The study found that about 168,000 migrants were detained in Mexico from July 2014 to June of this year, up from some 97,000 during the previous 12-month period.

It was based on a government data, case documentation from migrants' shelters, interviews with authorities, migrants and advocates and other sources.

Mexico announced its Southern Border Program in the summer of 2014, a time when the United States was experiencing a large spike in unaccompanied child migrants arriving at its own southern border. Many were Central American children fleeing violence in their home countries.

The Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, a U.S.-based advocacy group which helped prepare the report, said in an executive summary that the increased migration enforcement has "worrying implications" for human rights, due to reports of migrants being injured or killed during operations.

It also said that the crackdown has led migrants to abandon established northward routes such as the train known as "the beast," and resort instead to riskier, clandestine avenues where they are more vulnerable, such as traveling by foot or water.

Read the rest at Beloit Daily News

Related: Abuses Surge in Mexico's Migrant Crackdown: NGOs (The Sun Daily)

Related: The Science Behind Why People Fear Refugees (Vox)

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