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Mexico: News & Updates
Mexico shares a 2,000-mile border with its neighbor to the north. The US has played a significant role in militarizing the nation in misguided and ineffective policies to stop the flow of drugs and immigrants. Human rights abuses are prevalent throughout Mexico but especially in the southern, mostly indigenous states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Human rights defenders and indigenous community leaders—working to protect their ancestral lands and heritage—are targeted with threats, assaults, abductions and assassinations. Their struggles for peace and liberation are linked with those of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples throughout the hemisphere.
Learn more here.
RRN Letter
July 3, 2021
The climate for journalists in Oaxaca is extremely dangerous. There is documentation of six journalists killed throughout Mexico in 2020; five of those were in Oaxaca. Journalist Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera is the latest victim. On June 17, two unidentified people driving a car near the town of Morro Mazatán, Oaxaca, crashed into him while he was traveling on a motorcycle with his 15-year-old son. Gustavo Sánchez and his son fell from the motorcycle. The attackers then exited their car and shot and killed Gustavo Sánchez, riddling him with bullets. The municipal police in Tehuantepec reported that at least 15 9-millimeter bullet casings were found at the scene of the crime. The journalist received at least one gunshot to the head. We are urging officials in Mexico to : (1) carry out a thorough, exhaustive and impartial investigation into the assassination of Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera, publish the results, and bring the perpetrators to justice; (2) review protection programs for reporters and human rights defenders, and take all necessary protection measures to guarantee the safety of journalists in Oaxaca, in strict accordance with their wishes; (3) conduct an internal investigation into why Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera had not yet received the protection assigned to him by the Mecanismo de Protección de la Secretaría de Gobernación
News Article
May 26, 2021
*Thanks to The Marshall Project for the article and photos*
In fiscal year 2020, border encounters dropped by half while rescue rates doubled. Experts and humanitarian groups point to a Trump-era policy that continues today.
News Article
May 20, 2021
The FANG Collective and Detention Watch Network are celebrating the news that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will cut the contract at the Bristol County Detention Center in Massachusetts. Along with the end of the Irwin Detention Center contract in Georgia, also announced today, this is the first time ICE has cut a contract for a detention center in recent years. The announcement signals a major win for people who’ve been detained at the facility and bravely spoken out against its abuses and for local organizations who have long fought to shut it down. The announcement comes five months after the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office found that the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office violated the civil rights of currently detained people in ICE custody
News Article
April 12, 2021
*Thanks to The Associated Press for the article*
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has struck an agreement with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to temporarily surge security forces to their borders in an effort to reduce the tide of migration to the U.S. border.
The agreement comes as the U.S. saw a record number of unaccompanied children attempting to cross the border in March, and the largest number of Border Patrol encounters overall with migrants on the southern border — just under 170,000 — since March 2001.
News Article
February 24, 2021
Despite the language coming from the administration, these children are facing a terrible and possibly illegal situation. In 1997, a class-action lawsuit settlement established standards for the detention and release of unaccompanied minors taken into custody by the authorities. According to the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal government must transfer these unaccompanied children to a non-secure and licensed facility within days of being in custody. In an emergency, the government can keep the children for up to 20 days while seeking to reunite them with family members or place them with a sponsor. Meanwhile, the Carrizo Springs site is a secure site (the kids can’t leave), is unlicensed by the state of Texas (it’s operated by a government contractor for the Office of Refugee Resettlement), and is expected to hold children for 30 days, as reported by the Washington Post, which is obviously longer than the 20 days dictated by the Flores Agreement. The detention is also very expensive, coming in at a cost of $775 a day per child compared with $290 a day for permanent centers.
News Article
January 21, 2021
From No More Deaths: Part 2 of the Disappeared series concluded that the culture and policies of the US Border Patrol as a law-enforcement agency both authorize and normalize acts of cruelty against border crossers. On February 3 we will be releasing Part 3 of Disappeared, called Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search & Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance. The report explores the discriminatory and inadequate search and rescue practices for those presumed to be undocumented in the borderlands, and the systemic interference by Border Patrol of family and community search efforts.
RRN Letter
January 13, 2021
We wrote to officials in the state government of Chiapas and the federal government of Mexico about verbal threats of violence made against fifteen members of the Jovel Valley Environmental Network in Chiapas. A group of aggressors threatened the environmentalists on December 29 while digging a ditch to help protect Maria Eugenia wetlands, a natural area of 115 hectares. A construction company is threatening the wetlands—the main source of drinking water for the área and habitat for a number of endangered species —by filling in land, paving, and building on top of the land. We are urging authorities to: 1) thoroughly and impartially investigate the verbal attacks and threats of violence against the members of the Jovel Valley Environmental Network, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice; 2) adopt measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of the members of the Jovel Valley Environmental Network.
Content Page
January 10, 2021
From the American Friends Service Committee: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is an abusive agency with a history of human rights violations dating back to its inception in 2003. Neither Congress nor the courts have been successful in ending these abuses. Sign our petition urging Congress to abolish ICE today.
News Article
December 31, 2020
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s president said on Thursday that women should decide whether the country should legalize abortion, but he declined to take a position on the issue, which is still opposed by many Mexicans.
News Article
December 28, 2020
We continue to organize our communities in support and defense of immigrants, especially those in vulnerable situations. Connect with Immigration Working Group CLE, a collaborative of community advocates and organizations across NE Ohio. Ask about the group’s Immigrant Defense Fund, Rapid Response Team, Bond Reduction Project, volunteer needs, legislative advocacy, vigils, rallies, marches, and more. Contact iwgcle@gmail.com or see www.facebook.com/iwgCLE