An in-depth story in yesterday's El Universal is a recommended read on the plight of migrants in Mexico, who, as the priest Heyden Vázquez Medina of the migrant shelter Hogar de la Misericordia in Arriaga, Chiapas details, are continually abused by INM agents often in direct collusion with organized crime.
How many of these stories will it take before INM head Salvador Beltrán del Río stop sheepishly dismissing them as "exceptions"?
Showing posts with label Salvador Beltrán del Río. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salvador Beltrán del Río. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
After worrisome downplaying, INM announces second purge
After the head of Mexico's migration institute INM, Salvador Beltrán del Río, appeared to greatly downplay the grave problems of corruption and abuse in INM as "minimal" and "exceptions," the tone has apparently changed following a meeting with representatives from various of Mexico's government secretariats:
Salvador Beltrán del Río announced a second "purification" of more than 350 agents and administrative personnel presumably engaged in corruption, in addition to the 200 announced earlier.
Eyes are on the INM, and with good reason.
Salvador Beltrán del Río announced a second "purification" of more than 350 agents and administrative personnel presumably engaged in corruption, in addition to the 200 announced earlier.
Eyes are on the INM, and with good reason.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Can INM Salvador Beltrán del Río be trusted to tell the truth?
After a Wikileaks cable informed that U.S. agents had been allowed to interview migrants on Mexican territory using the offices of the national migrants institute, Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), its current head, Salvador Beltrán del Río, immediately denied this.
Yet Beltrán del Río, who recently took over as head of INM after the hapless Cecilia Romero, found himself in trouble: Not only did Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora seem to acknowledge the veracity of the cable by responding that "cooperation" with the U.S. in matters of "insecurity" exists, and that this also may relate to migrants, but Romero herself confirmed outright shortly thereafter that yes, FBI agents had on a least "a dozen" of occasions interrogated migrants in INM offices.
It is hardly a scandal of enormous proportions, but it makes me wonder:
1) Was Beltrán del Río simply not informed yet of this?
2) Or, is Beltrán del Río simply lying through his teeth?
The replacement of Romero by Beltrán del Río sent hopes to many that the INM would finally have a capable head - he has, for one, a law degree from Harvard - yet this is the second time in a very short period his words are put into question: Just a couple of weeks back, he had a spat with the Mexican human rights commission over the actual numbers of migrants kidnapped in Mexico, where INM operates with a much lower figure than other organizations. Unfortunately, a Harvard degree does not exempt him from being asked the question: Can Beltrán del Río be trusted to tell the truth?
Yet Beltrán del Río, who recently took over as head of INM after the hapless Cecilia Romero, found himself in trouble: Not only did Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora seem to acknowledge the veracity of the cable by responding that "cooperation" with the U.S. in matters of "insecurity" exists, and that this also may relate to migrants, but Romero herself confirmed outright shortly thereafter that yes, FBI agents had on a least "a dozen" of occasions interrogated migrants in INM offices.
It is hardly a scandal of enormous proportions, but it makes me wonder:
1) Was Beltrán del Río simply not informed yet of this?
2) Or, is Beltrán del Río simply lying through his teeth?
The replacement of Romero by Beltrán del Río sent hopes to many that the INM would finally have a capable head - he has, for one, a law degree from Harvard - yet this is the second time in a very short period his words are put into question: Just a couple of weeks back, he had a spat with the Mexican human rights commission over the actual numbers of migrants kidnapped in Mexico, where INM operates with a much lower figure than other organizations. Unfortunately, a Harvard degree does not exempt him from being asked the question: Can Beltrán del Río be trusted to tell the truth?
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Who do you trust, Mexico's immigration institute or human rights commission?
Mexico's institute of migration (INM), which faced an increasing barrage of accusations of corruption and incompetence, and outright complicity with human smugglers, under the disastrous rein of its former leader Cecilia Romero, rejected claims by Mexico's national human rights commission (CNDH) that 214 "collective disappearances" - that is, 214 cases of mass disappearances - took place in 2010, with an average of 50 migrants forcibly taken away. This is an absolutely stunning figure.
Salvador Beltran del Rio, the new INM chief, dismissed this figures as "outside of reality," though he didn't offere any figures of his own.
How do you trust - the INM or the CNDH? Keep in mind that that this is the same INM in which the federal government recently announced a "purge" of sorts.
PRD Senator Rubén Velázquez López, a longtime defender of migrants and critic of the institute, simply calls the INM "rotten."
Salvador Beltran del Rio, the new INM chief, dismissed this figures as "outside of reality," though he didn't offere any figures of his own.
How do you trust - the INM or the CNDH? Keep in mind that that this is the same INM in which the federal government recently announced a "purge" of sorts.
PRD Senator Rubén Velázquez López, a longtime defender of migrants and critic of the institute, simply calls the INM "rotten."
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