PRI and PAN demand full cleanup of the National Institute of Migration (INM)

In a great - and rare these days - display of bipartisanship, key PAN and PRI legislators such as Norma Leticia Salazar (PAN) and Miguel Ernesto Pompa Corella (PRI) called for a thorough cleanup and restructuring of the Instituto Nacional de Migración, the National Institute of Migration (INM), following the firing of its leader, widely regarded as inept, Cecilia Romero. This is important.

Pompa:

"We must ensure that those who come to the institute not only knows the subject, but have they have the will to apply the relevant law, are disposed to be held accountable, end the opaqueness, and rein in those who work in migration. I am from the border, and we see how they provide no protection to our countrymen and far from protecting them, they themselves extort them, so for this we will be keenly watching"

PRI Senator Carlos Jiménez Macía declared that Romero's leadership the past four years 
was "the darkest era in the migratory history of the country," given the increase in harassment, abductions, and outright murder of immigrants, above all central Americans since Romero took power in December 2006.  


PAN deputy Salazar Vázquez also emphasized a need to amend the penal code to ensure that those collaborating in the trafficking of migrants - Mexican, Central Americans, or otherwise - will be duly punished. Let's hope so. Clearly, however, the crimes of the INM go beyond a single leader, or even a handful of bad apples: Serious institutional restructuring is in order for trust to ever be gained in the INM.