Migrants, officials and rights workers who've been inside Siglo XXI, said to be the largest immigration detention center in Latin America, described it as sorely overcrowded and filthy. 'They threw us in there like little animals,' a Honduran woman said.
"I cannot imagine putting 100 more or hundreds more at the Siglo XXI. ... The migratory stations are not prepared to respond to greater capacity because they have been overwhelmed," Corzo said.
The U.N. refugee agency and other organizations criticized detention centers in Mexico even before the current crisis, saying migrants are held in substandard conditions and regularly extorted. They have called for detentions to be the exception, and to be completely eliminated for minors. Yet children continue to fill up the centers, even after a girl died in Mexico City under unclear circumstances.
López Obrador says human rights continue to be the cornerstone of his immigration policy, and officials are studying options for building new and more open facilities. Cubans were blamed and targeted for reprisals, according to Eliezer Pino, Jonathan Eduardo Merrero, Yunier Rives, Yasiel Rodríguez, Danilo Claro and Eduardo Martínez, who agreed to speak by name collectively figuring there's safety in numbers. All born in Cuba, they said they were plucked from the crowd, taken behind buses and beaten.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Overcrowding, abuse seen at Mexico migrant detention centerWitnesses say Mexico's Siglo XXI immigration holding facility is home to overcrowding, filthy conditions and abuse, emblematic of how the country has already been struggling to cope with a migratory surge even as it cracks down further under U.S. pressure
Read more »
Trump's breakthrough deal with Mexico turns into a miragePutting his tariff threat on indefinite hold, Trump is arguably in an even worse position now than when he launched this gambit in the first place.
Read more »
Antuna hat trick helps Mexico to Cuba rout in Gold Cup openerUriel Antuna scored a hat-trick as Mexico got their Gold Cup campaign off to a d...
Read more »
Mexico Releases Terms of Migration Deal With TrumpUnder the agreement signed to avoid punitive U.S. tariffs, Mexico is responsible for stemming the flow of migration from Central America to the U.S.
Read more »
You Can Now Read Trump’s ‘Secret Deal’ With MexicoYou can now read Trump’s 'secret deal' with Mexico
Read more »
Mexico steps up revisions amid US pressure over migrant flowMexican authorities say they intercepted four tractor-trailers packed with nearly 800 migrants.
Read more »