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| Was the Mexican Human Rights investigator Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson detained by US authorities to keep him quiet? |
By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it HSO Contributor
The politics behind the border's savage drug wars crossed the line into the US last week, leaving some to wonder if the nation is trying to quell dissent across the border as Mexico intensifies its efforts against the cartels.
The questions arose during the case of a Mexican human rights investigator detained at a US Port of Entry then jailed for a week as an asylum seeker even though he never sought asylum.
The incident started October 15 in the Mexican border city of Ciudád Juárez across the river from El Paso, Texas. The war has three frontlines, with two cartels and the Mexican Army vying for control. More than 2,000 people have been killed in the city this year as a result. While popular opinion attributes the deaths to the cartels, Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson's job was to investigate human rights violations against Mexico's Army.
According to his accountings, some 170 complaints have been filed against the Army, ranging from hit and run accidents to sexual assault, murder, torture and kidnapping. Being a human rights investigator in a country like Mexico has its price. Army soldiers detained one of his bodyguards in August; a second bodyguard had his house set on fire.
In early October, says Sandra Spector, a close family friend of de la Rosa and spouse to his lawyer, de la Rosa reported the general of the local Army base to Mexican officials because he hadn't addressed any of the 170 reports de la Rosa had written up. Within days, he was stripped of his authority as an investigator for the Human Rights Commission.
"And that's where it all started, " Spector says. On a Thursday night, de la Rosa walked into the port of entry at El Paso and swiped his tourist visa in front of a Customs and Border Protection officer. Noticing that the visa contained newspaper articles about de la Rosa fearing for his life in Mexico, the inspector asked him if he was afraid.
Then the inspector asked him if he was seeking asylum. De la Rosa said 'no,' Spector says. "They must have asked him ten times and then detained him. He finally called my husband at two or three in the morning and told him he was being detained. "
De la Rosa remained in custody of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for nearly a week before ICE released him Thursday morning.
Customs and Border Protection spokesman Roger Maier could not address de la Rosa's case but says that inspectors are obligated to hold people for asylum if they express a fear for their life.
"In general terms, our policy is that we interview applicants for admission to determine whether they have the proper documents for the purpose of their intended visit into the United States. If, during this interview, an applicant expresses fear of being returned to their home country, our officers are required to process them for an interview with an asylum officer. Our officers are not authorized to determine or evaluate the validity of the fear expressed. The applicant does not have to specifically request asylum, they simply must express fear of being returned to their country. "
US Citizenship and Immigration Services, " found fear in 118 of the 338 cases of credible fear referrals of Mexican nationals to its asylum officers last fiscal year," said CIS regional media manager Maria Elena Garcia Upson. She could not say how many people who expressed fear but didn't ask for asylum were held for asylum.
The case raises some potential issues about the Homeland Security Department's motives. Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Obama Administration have openly expressed their support for President Felipe Calderón's war on the drug cartels. Human rights violations by the government have been documented by independent journalists in Mexico and on the front pages of Washington, DC newspapers. But US government officials haven't addressed the allegations.
Last August, the US State Department intended to send a report approving of Mexico's human rights efforts in its internal wars, a preamble to Obama's attendance at a North American leaders' summit.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, rejected the State Department's plans to send the report, saying that the report didn't reflect the realities of Mexico's reported human rights violations.
For its part, the DHS views Mexico's efforts as key to its strategy of controlling the borders.
In light of this, Spector is suspicious of de la Rosa's detention.
"This is bizarre. Why would you detain a person trying to resolve human rights violations in one of the bloodiest cities in the world? "
Michel Marizco is an organized crime reporter in Arizona and northern Mexico. He runs the news and intelligence web site, www.BorderReporter.com, in Tucson.
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