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stopped a train the victims were riding and then forced the migrants into pick-up trucks.
One of the migrants who escaped immediately filed a formal complaint with the federal
prosecutor’s office in Saltillo, Coahuila. 107 Weeks later, another of the migrants who had
escaped—and who had previously had been too afraid to come forward—decided that he
too wanted to file an official complaint. However, when he arrived at the federal
prosecutor’s office to give his testimony with a human rights defender, the prosecutor said
the defender was not allowed to be present in the meeting. 108 When the defender insisted
that he had a right to accompany the migrant, the prosecutor “grew angry that [he] was
there and scolded [him].” 109 Then the prosecutor said she no longer wanted to take the
migrant’s testimony and turned him and the defender away. 110
The failure to promptly open investigations into the disappearances of undocumented
migrants can be especially harmful when witnesses are fellow migrants, because they are
likely to leave the places where abuses have occurred within a short period of time due to
their transitory status. They are also more reluctant to speak with authorities, out of fear
that authorities will deport them for having entered Mexico without authorization,
according to rights defenders in migrant shelters. 111 These investigative shortcomings
exacerbate the exposure undocumented migrants already face—people who the UN
Working Group on Enforced Disappearances said “are particularly vulnerable to enforced
disappearances due to their undocumented status and the lack of financial resources,
effective laws, protection schemes, and judicial remedies available to them.” 112
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid.; Héctor Mejía Alemndarez, written complaint submitted to National Human Rights Commission, Saltillo, Coahuila,
December 28, 2011 (on file with Human Rights Watch); National Human Rights Commission, Case: CNDH/6/2012/172/Q,
Oficio: QVG/OFRT/343/2012, April 16, 2012 (on file with Human Rights Watch).
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid.
111 Human Rights Watch interview with staff of Casa del Migrante Saltillo, Saltillo, Coahuila, April 23, 2011; Human Rights
Watch group interview with migrant defenders from Centro de Derechos Humanos del Migrante (Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua),
Coalición Pro Defensa del Migrante (Tijuana, Baja California), Casa YMCA de Menores Migrantes (Tijuana, Baja California),
Casa del Migrante Nazareth (Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas), and Centro de Recursos de Migrantes (Agua Prieta, Sonora),
Washington, DC, March 28, 2012.
112 UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Mission to Mexico, Addendum, Report of the Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, A/HRC/19/58/Add.2, December 20, 2011, para. 69,
http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=119 (accessed August 8, 2012).
39 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | FEBRUARY 2013