Nearly half of asylum-seekers returned to Mexico under the “Remain in Mexico” program to await a U.S. immigration court hearing said they’d been abused by local officials, according to a Human Rights First report released Thursday.
The U.S.-based human rights organization reviewed 2,688 interviews of asylum-seekers conducted between January and August. Most of the migrants were from Latin America, and 47% said they’d been robbed or extorted by Mexican government officials, including immigration agents and security forces.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has focused his immigration strategy on regional development, insists that his government doesn’t tolerate corruption or abuse by security forces. He celebrated the decision to scale back the U.S. program, saying in August that Mexico had never agreed to be a “camp for migrants who are waiting for a resolution in the United States.”
The Biden administration sought to end the program, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which was implemented during the government of President Donald Trump in 2019 to deter asylum-seekers. The program was shuttered after a protracted legal battle.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said in response to questions from Bloomberg News about the report that it “does not tolerate acts of corruption by public servants.” It called for any victims of extortion and theft by Mexican officials to report those crimes. Mexico’s national guard did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Most of the people placed into the Migrant Protection Protocols this year were from Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Many alleged that they had also faced violence from cartels in Mexico, where the government has come under pressure in recent weeks after a string of violent acts in major cities underscored the grip of the country’s criminal groups.
