We are gravely concerned and pained by the rise in kidnappings, extortions and other criminal activities against migrants throughout countries in our region, and particularly in Mexico, where the families of kidnapped migrants are made to pay huge financial sums in order to gain their freedom.

The dramas that our brother and sister migrants who suffer from abduction, kidnappings, repeated extortion, arrest, detention and deportation outrages us as a Church. We cannot accept such violations of basic human rights…

WE DECLARE

1. Concern for the constant acts directed against the migrant population by criminal groups, which profoundly violate the human rights of people on the move. Such acts provide ample evidence of the difficult dramas experienced first hand by migrants as they attempt to seek out greater life opportunities.
2. Uncertainty in light of the “good intentions” that governments have supposedly demonstrated in the combat against violence committed by criminal groups within migrant flows. Nonetheless, there has continued to be a lack of coherence in the efforts taken up by both governments and their civil servant representatives.
3. Indignation, because of the fact that few advances have been made towards the development of comprehensive migration policies that include human rights. Instead, only partial efforts have been made, such as the development of bilateral agreements between governments that unfortunately have been used to criminalize and deport migrants, and to employ military forces to control migrant flows along the borders.
4. The perception that the criminalization of migration by governments is paving the way for drug lords to increase their illicit profits while abusing the vulnerabilities of migrants.
5. Frustration with the increase in abuses committed against migrants through organized crime in countries of transit, and with the high level of impunity that drug trafficking is having in the world of migration.
6. Grave concern about the deterioration of harmonious, peaceful social integration in communities where migrants reside.

To read the declaration in its entirety, please see the pdf document below (available in Spanish only).

PRONUNCIAMIENTO VIA CRUCIS DEL MIGRANTE 2010 (58.81 KB)