Memo From Middle America (Formerly Known As Memo From Mexico) | Will Mexico Close Down Its Train Of Death?

10/14/2010

In my last VDARE.COM article I wrote about the horrible treatment suffered by illegal aliens, mostly Central Americans, passing through Mexico. (Mexico — "Graveyard of Central Americans")

While the Mexican government attacks Americans who seek to control their own immigration policy, it has permitted a humanitarian disaster to continue on its own territory. Illegal aliens passing through Mexico, from countries poorer than Mexico, are routinely robbed, raped, kidnapped and murdered, sometimes with the collusion of government authorities. About 20,000 illegal aliens are kidnapped annually in Mexico, and in August, 72 of them were massacred by the Zeta drug gang.

Many illegal aliens pass through Mexico by hopping freight trains, so that’s where a lot of the mayhem takes place.

This was pointed out recently in a press conference by Jose Antonio Ortega of Mexico’s Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia Penal (Citizen Council for Public Security and Penal Justice). Ortega called for Mexican officials to be investigated. A Mexican media source reported that:

"According to Ortega, it is the so-called "train of death" — a large freight railway which crosses Mexico from south to north — which leaves in its wake the abuses for which they [the Citizen Council and other organizations]demand that it be investigated by governors of all the states through which the route passes, as well as the authorities of the National Migration Institute."

Según Ortega, es el llamado "tren de la muerte" -un inmenso ferrocarril de carga que atraviesa México de sur a norte- el que traza esta estela de vejaciones por las que exigen que sean investigados los gobernadores de todos los estados que abarca tal ruta, así como las autoridades del Instituto Nacional de Migración.

Cada Año Secuestran a 20 Mil Migrantes in Mexico: ONG, Siglo de Torreon, August 30th, 2010

Note that Ortega is implying that both the governors of the states and the INM itself may bear part of the blame, through omission or commission, for this ongoing violence.

In my previous article I also noted an Amnesty International report on the illegal alien situation in Mexico.

You can read it here [PDF] if you have a strong stomach. Here are some highlights — of course, these are only a fraction of the violence taking place:

The report includes a photograph of a Honduran illegal alien in a wheelchair, after having lost his lower legs when he fell off a train. Apparently this happens frequently enough that, in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico, a shelter has been established for illegal aliens who lost limbs on trains. The illegal aliens travel on freight trains. Sometimes they fall off, sometimes they are thrown off by predatory criminals.
In 2007, in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca state, 12 illegal aliens (including 3 women and 4 children) were removed from a train by state police, who transferred them to the control of gangsters. When a local Catholic priest went to investigate, he was detained by municipal police for several hours.
On March 31^st, 2008, a freight train carrying hundreds of illegal aliens was stopped in the Niltepec municipality in the state of Oaxaca, after which Mexican immigration agents and Mexican Marines pursued and beat illegal aliens. (I wrote a VDARE.COM article about that one: Mexican Police, Marines Beating Up (Central American) Illegal Aliens In Mexico)
On November 5^th, 2008, a train driver stopped a train in the state of Oaxaca. Twelve women were taken from the train, and never seen again. In this case, the driver of the train was in collusion with the kidnappers. According to Amnesty International: "Eyewitnesses testified that the train driver stopped the train for the gang to specifically target the women." In fact, says Amnesty International, "Criminal gangs often operate with the co-operation of, or in collaboration with, train drivers, engineers or private security guards on the train routes."
In November of 2008, 36 illegal aliens were taken by force from a freight train in Veracruz State. They were moved to Tamaulipas state and confined by criminals with many other illegal aliens. The goal here was to compel the prisoners to give up phone numbers of relatives who could then be hit up for ransom.
In January of 2010, Mexican federal police stopped a freight train on the Chiapas-Oaxaca route. They yanked over 100 illegal aliens off the train, ordered them to lie on the ground and proceeded to rip off their belongings. After that, the police forced them to leave by walking along the railroad tracks. That night some of the illegal aliens were attacked by hoodlums, with at least one being raped and another killed.

And on and on it goes.

What can we say about this?

It’s a continent-wide humanitarian disaster for which various governments share the blame. Our government rewards illegal aliens once they get here. And Central American governments tacitly encourage emigration as a safety valve for their population. And hypocritically, the Mexican government bashes our immigration policy while allowing this Train of Death.

If the Mexican government really wanted to get control of the Train of Death, couldn’t it put the railways under some sort of martial law?

Then again, the government would have to make sure that the security personnel being used to secure the railroads were reliable. As we've seen in some examples above, some of the security personnel are complicit in the violence.

Granted, it would not be easy. The Mexican government can’t even protect its own citizens, how can it protect illegal aliens?

In the meantime, the Mexican government should stop lecturing us on how we treat illegal aliens in our country. After all, how bad do they really have it?

Despite their sufferings in Mexico, Central Americans continue to make the journey because, once they get into the U.S., they know there’s a good chance they won’t be deported and they can just blend into a large Latino community.

But if we got control of our border, eliminated rewards for illegals (including the insane anchor baby loophole) and started serious raids and deportations, the news would get back to Central America.

It would actually discourage emigration — and thus save lives of Central Americans.

Then, rather than focus their energy on traversing the Train of Death, they can work on improving their own lives — and maybe their countries too.

American citizen Allan Wall (email him) recently moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.

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