Mexico does not have data on the income of unaccompanied migrant children

Mexico does not have a register of children and adolescents entering the country through the southern border in an attempt to reach the United States. Despite the urgency and crisis at the southern border due to the mbadive influx of migrants, the government did not have the capacity to generate a traffic register in this vulnerable sector.

The director of the Network for Children's Rights in Mexico (Redim), Martín Pérez García, This coincides with the need to establish an official register and to know the number of minors, their age and nationality, and to encourage them to guarantee their rights.

Perez Garcia said the only data available for children and adolescents who cross Mexico alone to the northern border are part of the US Department of Homeland Security registry.because the National Institute of Migration (MNI) does not have this capacity.

According to the data available to the Border Patrol of the United States, Between January and March of this year, 20,916 minors were arrested at the US-Mexico border.

From this figure, 3595 children and adolescents were arrested between Sonora and Arizona and taken to detention centers in Yuma and Tucson.

According to these dataminors are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador; they therefore necessarily crossed the Mexican territory to reach the northern border.

Mario Luis Fuentes of the National System for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, iHe pointed out that reception centers are not structured either by the volume or the vulnerability of children.

"What needs to be done, is to recognize the magnitude of what is happening and build, not only infrastructure, but also affect a number of professionals, psychologists, social workers, staff of primary health care ", he explained.

He emphasized that the reality of migrant children and adolescents from Central America, must be treated urgently, because the shelters are overflowed and have no physical and human capacity.

"Mexico is obliged to protect children and adolescents to give them asylum or refuge in which their state is defined", said Fuentes.

Pérez García considered that "It is offensive in itself and violates all international rights and treaties, because we are talking about people fleeing violence and seeking refuge."