In response to the controversial Arizona immigration law, Mexico extended a repatriation program to help ease the transition of illegal migrants back home. The governments says the Arizona law could lead to a flood of returnees when it goes into effect, but most Mexicans are skeptical.
By Nacha Cattan, Correspondent, Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer
Mexico City and Cartagena, Colombia
The Christian Science Monitor
June 1, 2010 at 12:15 pm EDT
In response to the controversial new Arizona immigration law, Mexico is extending a program that helps citizens living illegally in the US return home.
Need medical attention? Need something to eat? The website of the Mexican National Migration Institute illustrates how the voluntary repatriation program works.
But few in Mexico are expecting a flood of new returnees. Last year about 500,000 Mexicans were repatriated from the US, an average annual number, according to National Migration Institute (INM).
While the country is spending some money to ease the transition home for Mexicans who want to return, most with steady jobs in the US are unlikely to sign up for the program.
“There will not be a massive return, unlike what is expected,” says Rodolfo Cruz, a professor in the population studies department at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana (COLEF). “In Mexico they do not have employment options, and they are well aware of this…It would be much more expensive for them to return [to Mexico]. Because they’ll return, spend money, not find any [work] or find work that does not meet their economic needs and will go once more to the United States.”
The head of Mexico's INM, Cecilia Romero, said that the repatriation program, is being extended this year because of concerns that more Mexicans will be driven out of Arizona. “It is probable that when the [new immigration] law of Arizona goes into effect, repatriations and deportations of Mexicans will go up,” she said recently.
The program will run from June 1 through Sept. 28, during which federal, state, and local authorities will help Mexican migrants, pointing them towards medical attention should they need it and helping them avoid criminal groups who prey on them on the way home.
The new Arizona immigration law directs police to determine immigration status if they are suspicious of criminal activity. Currently, police officers can inquire about a person’s immigration status only if that person is a suspect in another crime.
Rodolfo Mendez, who parks cars for a Mexico City restaurant, says his brother is an undocumented worker in Arizona and is considering leaving Arizona for another US state but not returning home. He wouldn't be able to earn enough to support his six children working the fields in his hometown of Santa Catarina, Oaxaca. The program could help his brother, “but it is no solution to the Arizona law.”
Hilario Fuentes, a newspaper vendor in Mexico City whose daughter lives illegally in Los Angeles, says he thinks few migrants living in the US would agree to voluntary repatriation. “They wouldn’t accept it, because people go [to the US] out of necessity. They leave their families out of necessity,” he says. His daughter has been deported four times, but keeps returning to Los Angeles to be with her American-born children.
Mr. Cruz says that Mexican action against the law, which has ranged from travel alerts to canceled bilateral meetings in Arizona, is popular in Mexico.
“Any help given to immigrants in the state of Arizona will be welcomed, because the new law is one of the strongest and most racist that has passed [in the US],” he says. But the real support will need to go toward Mexican consulates in Phoenix and Tucson once the law goes into effect, he says. “They will need help in presenting discrimination cases, abuse cases, civil rights violations…More than anything they will need information about what their rights are.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/0601/Arizona-immigration-law-prompts-Mexico-to-extend-repatriation-aid-program?sms_ss=email
Showing posts with label Voluntary Repatriation Program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voluntary Repatriation Program. Show all posts
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Monday, August 24, 2009
Two Daily Flights to Carry Deportees from Arizona to Mexico
Latin American Herald Tribune - Two Daily Flights to Carry Deportees from Arizona to Mexico
MEXICO CITY – Mexican authorities, in coordination with those in the United States, will use two daily flights between the two countries to repatriate illegal immigrants captured near the mutual border in Arizona who voluntarily agree to take part in the program, officials said Sunday.
The 2009 Voluntary Repatriation Program, which started up two days ago and will run until Sept. 28, is designed to guarantee a “dignified, safe and orderly” return to their country for Mexican immigrants captured in the Arizona desert.
The flights will depart from Tucson and will have Mexico City as their final destination, the Foreign Relations Secretariat, Government Secretariat and National Migration Institute, or INM, said in a joint statement.
Before boarding the planes, officials assigned to the Mexican consulates in Nogales and Yuma will conduct interviews with the detainees to ensure that the repatriation process is carried out properly.
Any illegal Mexican immigrant who is intercepted or who desires it may board the flights, be flown to the Mexican capital and from there be transported to his or her hometown “at no cost,” the statement said.
The aim of the project is to “reduce the loss of human life during the period of greatest heat in the desert and to combat, at the same time, the organized criminal networks that dedicate themselves to the traffic ... of people in that border zone,” the statement added.
The last stage will be carried out by INM personnel, who will provide “support and medical assistance to the countrymen who require it, with special attention to minors and other vulnerable groups.”
The undocumented migrants who do not take part in the voluntary program will remain in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities, who will carry out their deportations according to U.S. regulations.
The counterpart to the Mexican authorities is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Since the voluntary repatriation programs were begun by Arizona in 2004, 82,341 Mexican immigrants have been repatriated in this way.
In 2008, 18,465 undocumented migrants took part in the program, with the bulk of them coming from the central states of Puebla and Mexico, Oaxaca and Guerrero in the south and Michoacan in the west.
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MEXICO CITY – Mexican authorities, in coordination with those in the United States, will use two daily flights between the two countries to repatriate illegal immigrants captured near the mutual border in Arizona who voluntarily agree to take part in the program, officials said Sunday.
The 2009 Voluntary Repatriation Program, which started up two days ago and will run until Sept. 28, is designed to guarantee a “dignified, safe and orderly” return to their country for Mexican immigrants captured in the Arizona desert.
The flights will depart from Tucson and will have Mexico City as their final destination, the Foreign Relations Secretariat, Government Secretariat and National Migration Institute, or INM, said in a joint statement.
Before boarding the planes, officials assigned to the Mexican consulates in Nogales and Yuma will conduct interviews with the detainees to ensure that the repatriation process is carried out properly.
Any illegal Mexican immigrant who is intercepted or who desires it may board the flights, be flown to the Mexican capital and from there be transported to his or her hometown “at no cost,” the statement said.
The aim of the project is to “reduce the loss of human life during the period of greatest heat in the desert and to combat, at the same time, the organized criminal networks that dedicate themselves to the traffic ... of people in that border zone,” the statement added.
The last stage will be carried out by INM personnel, who will provide “support and medical assistance to the countrymen who require it, with special attention to minors and other vulnerable groups.”
The undocumented migrants who do not take part in the voluntary program will remain in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities, who will carry out their deportations according to U.S. regulations.
The counterpart to the Mexican authorities is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Since the voluntary repatriation programs were begun by Arizona in 2004, 82,341 Mexican immigrants have been repatriated in this way.
In 2008, 18,465 undocumented migrants took part in the program, with the bulk of them coming from the central states of Puebla and Mexico, Oaxaca and Guerrero in the south and Michoacan in the west.
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