Last week, news broke that 7 regional bosses of the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) are under investigation for corruption. This is certainly good news, and organizations such as Amnesty International also backed the process, though it called for a far more thorough investigation.
The measure come very late. The INM has long been commonly regarded as heavily infiltrated by organized crime, and recent horror stories where INM agents handed over captured undocumented migrants to the murderous Zetas are likely only the tip of the iceberg.
The suspended INM bosses: Tamaulipas, Aurelio Gerardo Alamán Bueno; in Veracruz, Humberto Alessandrini; in Tabasco, Luis Alberto Molina Ríos; in Mexico State, Jorge Octavio Armijo, and in San Luis Potosí, Elodia Gutiérrez Estrada. In Oaxaca, Omar Adrián Heredia had already stepped down, and is also under investigation.
Critics of the INM such as PRD Senator Carlos Naverrete, has called for a far more thorough purge, and Salvador Beltrán del Río, head of INM after the disgraced Cecilia Romero stepped down following the Tamaulipas mass grave discovery, has signaled a willingness to carry this out.
Yesterday, Beltrán del Río revealed that from August 2010-April 2011, more than 200 INM employees have been fired, with a penal process open against 40 of them for the graveness of their alleged offense. Special exams, including lie detectors, will be used on 1,500 employees in Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Chiapas, and agents will be periodically rotated in order to avoid collusion with organized crime.
For whatever it's worth, it is a start.
No comments:
Post a Comment