Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The Mexican State is directly responsible for the murder of the 39 migrants killed in Ciudad Juarez. The best proof of this is the desperate, crude, and empathy-lacking attempts to evade all responsibility for the homicide exhibited by the country’s top political leaders. They know why they do it: their 2018 electoral victory was driven on the road paved with accusations against the State for its actions of repression, indolence, and corruption.
At the very first place in line is the President of the Republic, who initially wanted to avoid talking about the issue. Then he accused the migrants of being responsible for the “incident” and later announced that no “important” official would be charged with the situation, let alone removed from his post. At some point, as a forgotten act, he expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased, especially when the leaders of the migrants’ countries of origin demanded a clear account of what happened. Cynicism also has its limits.
Finally, there was the shameful presidential trip to Juarez, where he accused the desperate migrants of being provocateurs and that they were moved “by Maru”, that is, the Governor of Chihuahua, Maria Eugenia Campos Galvan. Add to the President’s lack of empathy a significant dose of paranoia. Additionally, he refused to meet with the migrants. Why? Because the President only meets with poor people who have received money from his government to be applauded. He does not meet with people in pain and with nothing to lose. That would never happen, out of respect for the presidential investiture, he would say as a justification.
Along with the presidential evasions and denials, there is the public political behavior of the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López. Apart from immediately using the case to make electoral proselytism inside the country, he showed his true character as a human being. He does not give a damn about the life and death of unknown migrants who are not even Mexicans. Lopez gave the impression that, for him, they are a hindrance in his race for political glory. The same lack of empathy of the President only parallels his lack of empathy in the case of Ciudad Juarez.
Lopez immediately disavowed all responsibility for the administration of the immigration detention center, its personnel, and the protocols applicable in the event of an emergency. He directed all responsibility for managing the immigration policy to Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and, moreover, his opponent in the race for Morena’s presidential candidacy to compete in the June 2024 elections.
Little did he care about the sign above the entrance gate to the detention center that reads: Instituto Nacional de Migración, Secretaría de Gobernación (National Institute of Migration, Ministry of the Interior). It made it easy for him to tell a lie publicly. Why did it make it easy for him to say a lie publicly, you ask? Because he knows he is untouchable by the President, as he serves as a fuse in a political system on the verge of a major political crisis. And said and done: the President announced emphatically that “no one will be fired” for his alleged participation in the mistakes at the detention center. The President thus warned that there would be total impunity in the case of Ciudad Juarez, with the obvious exception of the elements present at the time. And the Secretariat of Citizen Security also announced, as if it were an act of administrative forcefulness, the arrest of six low-level agents of the center and the closing of the facilities themselves. The best way to make the problem disappear is to eliminate all physical evidence that there was ever a detention center on that site in Ciudad Juarez. With the evidence gone, the case languishes and eventually dies. So goes the theory, at least.
The same was said with the 43 from Ayotzinapa and the ABC Day Care Center. The theory and practice were that if the case were legally and physically closed, then it would disappear. But the accusation appeared that the State was responsible, and the cases did not disappear.
In the case of the detention center in Ciudad Juarez, the responsible party for the murder of 39 migrants and counting is the Mexican State, in the administrative form of the federal government. Administratively, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Institute of Migration are directly responsible. All of its leaders are personal friends of the President and were appointed by him, and they apply the policies, in this case migratory, that the President of the Republic instructs them to apply. From a legal, administrative, and ethical point of view, none of these three officials can evade their direct responsibility for the massive death of migrants, no matter how many foreigners they are. Not even all the cynicism in the world can save them from the judgment that history will pass on the cruel death of migrants in a Mexican federal government facility.
Moreover, as happens in all cases of violence exercised by the State, the case of the immigration detention center in Ciudad Juarez is uncovering a chain of facts that point to favoritism, support for dictatorships, incompetence, and issues of corruption. It was denounced long before the Ciudad Juarez tragedy occurred that a petty businessman, Elias Gerardo Valdes Cabrera, owner of SEICSA, upon being appointed Consul of Nicaragua in the north of the country, saw his business flourish. Today he receives more than 3 billion pesos identified (because it could be much more) in contracts from the federal government by direct award.
What is one hypothesis about managing these resources and the relationship with the businessman? That it is a front that serves to channel new resources, in dollars, to the Nicaraguan dictatorship and to the pockets of the director of the INM, and to the electoral campaign of the Secretary of the Interior. For the time being, the fact that the small businessman has contracts with a score of public offices, including the Welfare Bank, is striking, and speaks of the lack of effectiveness of the federal government’s internal accountability systems. In the depths of the Mexican State, no one is surprised by the massive appropriation of public funds for political or personal gain. It is seen as something natural and necessary for the reproduction of Morena in the next six-year term.
To solve the case of the tragedy and cover up the corruption reigning in the center, the President appointed Rosa Icela Rodriguez, of Citizen Security, as the official spokesperson to cover up the open hole, diverting the attention of presidential friends and pouring a bucket of cold water over the case. The failed and ill-advised presidential trip to Ciudad Juarez only further stimulated public attention and interest to know in depth the interests at stake, including corruption and cover-up, for this migrant homicide. There is still much to learn about the case of the malicious homicide provoked and justified by the State.
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