Mexican government increases efforts to protect its emigrants

by
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan

Los Angeles, Alta California - August 13, 2007 - (ACN) Urged by a network of immigrant rights organizations in the US, the Mexican congress and the presidency have launched an initiative that will coordinate their efforts intended to come to the aid of its increasingly besieged emigrant community in the US. Representatives of immigrant rights organizations travelled to Mexico City recently to impress upon the Mexican government the nature of the crisis being faced by its emigrant community in the US due to the ongoing ICE raids and consequent break up of families.

The "Commission on Foreign Relations" of the Mexican congress will meet tomorrow with top officials of the Mexican "Department of State" to formulate a plan of action designed to address the crisis. Among items on the agenda are ways to assist the tens of thousands of nationals being deported and returned to Mexico. There is presently an urgent need to help deportees who are trapped in border towns without any resources. Many are indigenous nationals who do not speak Spanish.

The Mexican government has been concerned for the physical safety of its emigrants posed by the extremist and violent elements of US anti-immigrant movement. Last Thursday it strongly criticized the "excessive use of force" by American border authorities. There have now been a number of killings of Mexican nationals by the "loose trigger" US Border patrol. The Mexican Department of State said, "The Mexican government expresses a firm protest against the use of lethal weapons in the face of situations that do not represent a proportionate risk," It added, "Mexico reiterates its condemnation of the excessive use of force by U.S. immigration authorities on the border."

One week ago, an unidentified Border Patrol agent shot and killed Jose Alejandro Ortiz Castillo, age 23, at the fence that separates El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. In addition. last month, an undercover border agent in the San Diego area fatally shot an immigrant from Mexico after a minor scuffle. Also, in January, US Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett shot and killed a youth from Mexico in Arizona. Agent Corbett was charged with murder and is presently being tried in a federal court. These are just the most recent cases that have resulted in the death of unarmed Mexican immigrants of the many that have occurred over the past few years.