The organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued an alert this Wednesday regarding the deployment of 10,000 elements of the Mexican National Guard at the border with the United States. According to HRW, this measure could strengthen organized crime by forcing migrants to resort to more dangerous routes.
In a press conference, Juanita Goebertus, HRW's director for the Americas, pointed out that actions to block migrant crossings could benefit organized crime groups and cartels that profit from human trafficking. This situation, Goebertus explained, goes against the intention of reducing migration and could expose migrants to greater risks.
The HRW representative reacted to the agreement between the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, and Donald Trump, which involved pausing tariffs in exchange for the deployment of the Armed Forces to combat illegal trafficking at the border. Despite Sheinbaum's assertion of a decrease in encounters with irregular migrants, HRW warned that similar policies in other borders have failed.
Based on experiences in other regions, such as the Darién jungle between Colombia and Panama, HRW noted that measures to curb migration have not stopped the flow of people but have pushed them toward more dangerous routes. On these routes, migrants face violations of their human rights, including sexual violence, homicides, and disappearances, among other critical situations.
