Sixty participants from 17 countries across a broad spectrum of the western hemisphere tackled immigration detention in the first IDC Americas region workshop held in Mexico City last week. The event was co-hosted by IDC´s regional representative, Sin Fronteras, IAP, an organization with over ten years experience working in immigration detention centers in Mexico. The focus of the three-day workshop was to bring primarily Latin American and Caribbean groups together, with some key US participation, to share experiences, identify regional issues and work towards regional collaboration on immigration detention.
It became clear that the detention of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants is a growing concern throughout the region, even in some countries that traditionally have not detained undocumented migrants or asylum seekers. In particular, participants identified issues such as the increasingly punitive and discriminatory use of immigration detention, the continued criminalization of irregular migration and trend towards institutionalizing security concerns in recently implemented migration law and policy, and the limited access to detention centres for monitoring purposes, as well as the use of detention centres, prisons and ad hoc facilities across the region in conditions and standards lower than international standards.
Participants identified several good practices in the region such as a presumption against detention in Argentina and countries like Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela who do not detain asylum seekers. Furthermore, despite the obvious challenges presented in the nature of much of the region as a transit corridor to the United States, NGO groups took the opportunity to explore and propose creative solutions to the situations they identified.
Finally, NGOs across Central, North and South America, as well as the Caribbean, agreed to develop a regional network in order to work together to address the growing immigration detention concerns and contribute to highlighting the region´s issues in the international political and public arena. The IDC will coordinate these regional initiatives from its representation in Mexico City.
The IDC and Sin Fronteras also held an engaging meeting with the Mexican government, who agreed to work with NGOs on exploring and developing alternatives to detention for vulnerable groups. The IDC and Sin Fronteras also proposed alternatives to the government in an interview with the leading newspaper Reforma.
In addition to this, the IDC and Sin Fronteras held a successful press conference which introduced the issue of alternatives to detention to public opinion.
Gisele Bonnici, regional coordinator for the Americas
Read the IDC & SF press release (Spanish only)
Watch Grant Mitchell and Nancy Perez’ interview with Reforma online (English & Spanish translations)
Read the exclusive report below
Nota de Prensa IDC Sin Front Eras
