Mexico's Congress finalizes de-criminalization of illegal immigration into
Mexico
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The
National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and
condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American
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Posted on the American Patrol Report on May 1, 2008
Mexico's Congress finalizes de-criminalization of illegal
immigration into Mexico
El Porvenir
(Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) 4/30/08
Mexico's Chamber of Deputies (read: House of
Representatives) yesterday unanimously approved the bill sent by the Senate
de-criminalizing undocumented immigration in Mexico. Penalties of up to ten
years in jail for illegal entry into Mexico have now been eliminated. The
legislative proposal had lingered in the Senate for a year, but now illegal
aliens in Mexico face only an administrative fine equivalent to 20 up to 100
days of the minimum wage in the Distrito Federal. Deputy (Congressman)
Edmundo Ramirez Martinez stated that nearly 300 thousand Central Americans cross
through Mexico each year to try to reach the United States and that Mexico
cannot demand a dignified treatment for Mexican immigrants in the U.S. without
first reforming Mexican laws to de-criminalize Central American immigrants.
The completed legal reform was turned over to the federal executive for
publication in the "Official Journal of the Federation." (our report of
4/29/08 relates)
Mex. federal agents seized 61 kgs., 840 gms. of cocaine being carried in four
suitcases each by four subjects who were about to board a flight to Ciudad
Obregon, Sonora, from Mexico City's airport.
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La Jornada (Mexico City) 4/30/08
(note: all but the first paragraph of today's main editorial follows)
"Migration: a step forward"
Classifying migration as a violation of law constitutes a grave contradiction in
the face of a contemporary global reality which has brought about migratory
flows from some countries to others and from some areas to others as the only
recourse for millions of people. The asymmetrical economies, the mobility of
sources of employment and the internal conflicts in many countries make
unavoidable the transit of individuals across national borders which have been
diminished or erased by merchandise and capital, but not for human beings with
or without documents. Under those circumstances, the world economy has become a
trap for entire sectors of peoples who see themselves caught between the
unsuitable characteristics for habitation of their original surroundings and the
legal harassment they are exposed to in other countries.
In the case of our country, the criminal persecution of undocumented aliens was
particularly grotesque, not only because it went against the tradition of
asylum, refuge and hospitality which our country flaunts, but because millions
of Mexicans in the United States suffer an official and social treatment as
degrading as what has been meted out to citizens of third countries who arrive
here without a permit to transit, visit or reside. Punishing them with jail has
undermined our country's moral authority to advocate for Mexicans on United
States soil.
The legal classification of migrants as criminals does not avoid nor
diminish migration; it simply multiplies the possibilities that the aliens be
mistreated, humiliated, exploited, be made victims of extortion and even
murdered by public employees as well as by private citizens. This happens in the
south of the United States with Mexicans and Latin Americans who travel to that
country in search of work, and it happens as well in Mexico to Central and South
Americans such as the ones who try to find here less onerous living conditions
than those they face in their countries of origin.
Thus, the abolition of the criminal status for undocumented aliens was a
humanitarian obligation, one of elemental congruence (and) whose completion was
pending. The unanimous approval of the aforementioned legal reform in the
Chamber of Deputies is good news.
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El Financiero (Mexico City) 4/30/08
Mex. federal agents and navy personnel seized 3,768 kgs. of pseudoephedrine
plus 294 kgs. of ephedrine at the port of Manzanillo's customs facilities. The
larger find was in a shipboard container which had come from China; the
documentation said the cargo was 11.5 tons of crackers. The smaller load was in
a second container, hidden among a load of sacks of sugar.
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La Cronica (Mexicali, Baja Calif.) 4/30/08
Three more "Ministerial State Police" officers were dismissed whose names had
appeared in the letter that army General Sergio Aponte had sent to Baja Calif.'s
Att'y. Gen.; the three were listed as being involved at some level with
organized criminal groups.
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Milenio (Mexico City) 4/30/08
Mex. military on patrol in the northernmost areas of Nuevo Leon came up on some
men in several vehicles who refused to stop. A chase and exchange of gunfire
followed, leaving six military and one thug wounded. (The area in question is
quite close to the border, not far below the Falcon Reservoir and Dam on the Rio
Grande). The thugs managed to take their wounded away with them and escaped.
And in Navolato, Sinaloa, the body of a man was found. He'd been tortured, shot
and wrapped with plastic and tape. It turned out to be that of Ministerial State
Police officer Zenon Sainz Lopez, who had disappeared a few days ago and was
feared kidnapped. (Our report of 4/24/08 relates)
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El Universo (Guayaquil, Ecuador) 4/30/08
Another group of Ecuadoreans tried to leave their country aboard a launch that
would take them to a "mother ship" in which to travel to Central America. Their
travel plans were frustrated when they were spotted by an Ecuadorean navy patrol
unit.
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- end of report -