MEXICO CITY -- Top diplomats from 14 Latin American countries and the United States will gather in Mexico City today for a conference on transnational crime and migration issues. The conference's host will be the Mexican secretary of internal affairs, José Blake Mora, whose Interior Ministry coordinates the Mexican National Institute of Migration (INM). The problem of organized crime and migration has become increasingly urgent this year after a series of incidents in which undocumented migrants fell victim to violence in Mexico.
The incidents have become a source of international embarrassment for Mexico. While loudly protesting Arizona's immigration law SB 1070, accusing the American border state of violating the human rights of illegal aliens, Mexico has itself failed to guarantee the human rights of migrants traveling within its borders en route to the United States.
The latest incident occurred in August, when 72 undocumented migrants were shot en masse in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The scale and brutality of the massacre shocked even the most cynical observers. The victims, 58 men and 14 women, came from as far away as Brazil and Ecuador, but the majority came from Central America.