Record Number of Migrants Detained in Mexico; Nearly 200,000

Nearly 200,000 migrants were detained in Mexico in 2015, the Interior Ministry office said Sunday, claiming that it is the highest figure recorded in almost a decade.

At least 92 percent come from Central America and 45 percent of that group are Guatemalans. The rest are from South America, Africa and Asia. All of them were detained while trying to reach the United States.

The Interior Ministry office said that at least 300,000 migrants enter Mexico every year seeking entrance to the U.S, adding that authorities have not strengthened security over recent years. 

“The increase has to do with the rising flow of migrants and all of them are repatriated except for migrants from Asia, Africa and Cuba,” Humberto Roque Villanueva, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said to La Jornada. 

“Immigration law is very noble in this regard. Instead of repatriating them we open the doors and they are able to regularize their stay,” Roque added. 

Several humanitarian organizations have denounced the way Mexico treats immigrants from Central America, who cross over the country’s southern border en route to the U.S.

On the other hand the National Institute for Migration (INM) reported last month that more Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated since the end of the global financial crisis of 2007–08. 

OPINION: US Deports Fewer People in 2015 – by Outsourcing to Mexico

According to official figures from 2009 to 2014, a million Mexicans and their families left the U.S. for Mexico while U.S. census data for the same period shows an estimated 870,000 Mexican nationals leaving Mexico and migrating to the U.S.