Mexico deports record numbers of women and children in US-driven effort

Nina Lakhani in Mexico City
Wednesday 4 February 2015 12.00 GMT

Record numbers of women and children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America were deported by Mexican authorities last year, as part of US-driven operations to stem the flow of migrants reaching the American border.

More than 24,000 women were deported from Mexico in 2014 – double the number sent home in 2013. The upsurge in child detentions was even sharper – climbing 230% to just over 23,000, Mexican interior ministry figures reveal.

Many were captured during security operations targeting train and bus routes commonly used by Central American migrants as part of a new strategy called new Southern Border Plan (Plan Frontera Sur). The plan was launched last summer after Barack Obama declared the unprecedented numbers of unaccompanied children and families seeking refuge at the US border an “urgent humanitarian situation”.

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Mexican officials say the new crackdown is designed to retake control of the historically porous southern frontier and protect migrants from transnational crime groups. But the measures have been widely attributed to pressure from the Americans, who do not want a repeat of last year’s crisis which clogged up the immigration courts and saw tens of thousands women and children crammed into detention centres at the border.

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