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| By Jose Luis Jiménez UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER June 23, 2008 TIJUANA – Nearly 200 illegal immigrants sent back to Mexico from the United States were falsely arrested by Tijuana municipal police who beat or robbed some of them, according to a study that a human rights group released last week. Victor Clark Alfaro, head of the Binational Center for Human Rights and a longtime observer of Tijuana crime trends, called on the municipal government to rein back the police and respect the rights of the returning immigrants. Clark, who is also a lecturer at San Diego State University, and a group of students interviewed hundreds of immigrants between August and April. They found 188 of them were arrested for not carrying proper identification and taken before a judge, who many times ordered them jailed for up to 36 hours. Some of those immigrants said police beat or robbed them. The group has hung a large banner outside its office in Tijuana's Zona Rio section, across from City Hall, calling the police “immigrant hunters” and demanding a stop to the practice. “The Mexican government expresses indignation at the treatment of Mexicans in the United States,” the group wrote in the report. “But when the immigrant is deported to Mexico, the government forgets its previous stance and violates the migrant's rights.” Messages left with Tijuana municipal police and government officials were not returned Friday. Previously, Mayor Jorge Ramos has said the problem is that migrants lack the proper identification and are being caught up in a crackdown on crime in the city. The group argued the crackdown contributes to the problem because police are now operating under arrest quotas and they are detaining immigrants to make those numbers. Immigrants have encountered poor treatment in the past. In the 1990s, bands of robbers targeted illegal immigrants as they gathered to cross into the United States and when they were returned to Mexico. A special police detail, called Grupo Beta, helped curb the lawlessness. The rights group plans to share the findings with U.S. groups that assist border-crossers. They also plan on meeting with municipal officials. “It is not a problem of a lack of identification,” Clark said in an interview. “It is a problem of the poor attitude by some municipal police officers toward migrants.” |