Mexican Senate Approves Law Stepping up Migrant Rights

Even as more than 20 U.S. state legislatures consider Arizona-style laws designed to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants, the Mexican Senate voted unanimously on February 24 to decriminalize illegal immigration. If the new measure were to become law, no person in Mexico could be found guilty of a crime based solely on an irregular immigration status. “The message that the Senate of the Republic wants to send to the country, to the migrants, but also to the world, is that Mexico does not penalize, criminalize or persecute anyone,” said Senator Francisco Herrera of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. “That is unacceptable here or anywhere else.”

A recent Los Pinos press release indicated that President Felipe Calderón planned to discuss “the conditions that confront Mexican communities…in the United States” when he met with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama during their fifth bilateral summit on March 3. Still, though Mexico is known more for sending immigrants than receiving them, each year some 300,000 undocumented Central Americans cross the Mexican border—with most continuing on to the United States.

While the Mexican government protests the discrimination undocumented Mexicans face in the United States, Central Americans often suffer mistreatment in Mexico as well. The plight of Mexico’s undocumented migrants made headlines in August, when the Mexican military discovered a mass grave near the border region containing 72 cadavers, most of whom were identified as Central and South American migrants. Human Rights Watch estimates in its 2011 World Report that about 18,000 migrants are kidnapped annually in Mexico, “often with the aim of extorting payments from their relatives in the United States.” A survey released days before the Senate’s decision and published by Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH, in Spanish) found that at least 11,000 kidnappings of migrants occurred in Mexico from April to September 2010. The CNDH also calculated that the figure could be much higher due to conservative counts of abductions and victims’ reluctance to report crimes. “Because of their irregular immigration status, [migrants] do not turn to the authorities—to the contrary, they avoid them,” according to a 2009 CNDH report. “Their status as undocumented immigrants makes them easy targets for bad public servants, common criminals, and organized crime; their intention to cross to the United States makes them vulnerable to false promises of work or transportation to their destination.”

The bill, which has been sent to Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies for approval before executive signature, grants migrants the right to file legal complaints when they are victims of crimes, regardless of immigrations status. They also would be guaranteed access to education and emergency medical care, as well as the possibility of normalizing immigration status.

Notwithstanding the bill’s progressive bent, the original proposal, submitted December 9, contained several proposals targeting undocumented immigrants that drew criticism from civil society groups. One clause would have allowed people to report undocumented immigrants to the Mexican authorities anonymously. Another would have fined employers who hire undocumented immigrants by up to $5,000. One of the most controversial proposals would have given the federal police the authority to arrest undocumented immigrants outside the border zone, which critics said would have paved the way for U.S.-style raids. However, all of those measures were removed from the bill before the Senate approved it.

The Mexican Senate’s push to loosen restrictions on illegal immigration also serves as a response to the flurry of proposals in U.S. state legislatures—with Arizona’s in the vanguard—targeting undocumented immigrants. CNN reported last month that lawmakers in 40 states are considering proposals to end the right to citizenship by birth in the United States, granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. A comprehensive immigration bill submitted by conservative Arizona state senator Russell Pierce would require parents to submit their children’s proof of immigration status to enroll them in school, whether public or private. The record of the Migrants Law debate indicates that actions in Arizona weighed on the minds of Mexico’s senators. “We’ve been asking the Americans for many years to treat the Mexicans who cross the border with respect,” said Senator Arturo Nuñez Jiménez of the Party of the Democratic Revolution. “With this law, we’re going to give such treatment to the Central Americans who come to Mexico on their way to the United States.”

Learn More:

• Access an AS/COA resource guide that offers coverage of Arizona’s immigration law SB1070 and the Mexican government’s reaction to the legislation.
• Read the version of Mexico’s Migration Law prior to the removal of the controversial portions.
• Read the transcript of the Senate debate in which the law was modified.
• The Mexican National Commistion on Human Rights’ 2011 “Informe especial sobre secuestro de migrantes en Mexico.”
• The “Mexico” chapter of Human Rights Watch’s 2011 World Report.