MEXICO KILLINGS SHOW MIGRANTS' PLIGHT

Massacre of 72 at Remote Ranch Reveals Dangers Many Central and South
Americans Face During Their Journeys to U.S.

MEXICO CITY-This week's massacre of 72 Central and South American
migrants in Mexico highlights a paradox the government here doesn't
like to talk about: While it complains about the treatment of its own
undocumented workers in the U.S., Mexico can be a far worse place to
be an illegal migrant.

Mexican soldiers on Thursday fanned out near a remote ranch about 90
miles from the U.S. border where 58 men and 14 women from Honduras, El
Salvador, Ecuador and Brazil were bound, blindfolded, lined up against
a wall and executed.

A survivor told authorities that he and his fellow U.S.-bound migrants
were kidnapped and told they would either have to pay a ransom or work
as drug couriers and hit men, according to the Reforma newspaper.
Authorities suspect the Zetas drug gang was behind the massacre.

The killings have shocked the Mexican public, which has witnessed a
string of atrocities by drug gangs, and sparked a national discussion
about the country's failure to protect foreign migrants, despite its
quickness to criticize ill treatment of Mexican illegal immigrants in
the U.S.

Eleven Mexican human-rights groups issued a joint statement Thursday
condemning the executions, saying they were not "an isolated act. It
is a clear sign of how violence is growing against migrants by
Mexico's state and individuals."

Nearly all of the Central and South Americans in Mexico illegally are
transiting the country in an effort to get to the U.S.-rather than
looking to find jobs or settle down in Mexico. Mexican and U.S.
authorities say it is difficult to gauge the number of people involved.

"Mexico-its government, its society-suffers from bipolar disorder on
this issue," Miguel Angel Granados Chapa, a columnist for Reforma,
wrote in Thursday's paper. "We are wounded and scandalized by the
conduct of U.S. institutions and some of its people against our
citizens up north. ... But a similar or worse mistreatment happens
here to Central and South Americans."

In an interview, Cecilia Romero, head of the National Immigration
Institute, Mexico's immigration authority, said the country has taken
numerous steps to fight abuses of undocumented migrants in Mexican
territory.

"Just in Tamaulipas this year, we, in coordination with the army, have
carried out 16 operations and rescued 812 migrants from safehouses
operated by organized crime," she said.

Ms. Romero said 30 immigration officials had been sent to prison for
offenses including collusion with organized crime and extorting
migrants. The immigration authority has filed more than 600 legal
actions against people traffickers, she added.

"We have been fighting hard against organized crime," she
said.

In a statement, President Felipe Calderon "energetically condemned"
the murders in Tamaulipas, expressed the Mexican government's
solidarity with the relatives of the victims, and vowed to continue
the fight against organized crime in Mexico.

Earlier this year, Mr. Calderon and many Mexicans reacted with outrage
to a new law in Arizona that allowed law-enforcement officials to
check the immigration status of someone they has "reasonable
suspicion" was in the country illegally. Mr. Calderon and others said
the law was "xenophobic" and could be abused to target anyone who
looked Mexican.

Human-rights groups, however, say Mexico's government has done little
to protect migrants on its turf. More than a dozen Mexican rights
groups in March presented a case against the Mexican government at the
Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American
States, arguing Mexico was systematically violating the rights of
illegal migrants.

An estimated 20,000 migrants are kidnapped each year in Mexico,
according to a study last year by Mexico's National Human Rights
Commission. In as many as 200 cases, the abductions were carried out
by local police or in collusion with police forces, the report said.

"In many cases, they are victims of federal and local authorities,
especially those involved in public security, who brutally beat them,
humiliate them, and extort them," the report said, adding that Mexican
courts showed little urgency in prosecuting such crimes.

There are signs Mexico is paying more attention to the problem. One
U.S. official based in Mexico City said he has given countless
workshops to Mexican federal agencies on how to protect migrants from
criminal gangs. "There has been a marked change in Mexican government
attitude towards this situation," the official said.

The trip from Central America to the U.S. border is "one of the most
dangerous in the world," according to an April 2010 report from Amnesty
International titled "Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico."

Migrants walk through remote jungles, sleep outside, and ride atop
dangerous trains to avoid immigration checkpoints. Local police, taxi
drivers and government officials demand bribes to let them pass. They
are targets of gangs, ranging from local thugs to sophisticated
criminal organizations like the Zetas, a notoriously cruel drug gang
initially formed by defectors from Mexico's army.

As many as six in 10 women suffer sexual violence during the trip,
according to Amnesty International.

Rapes are so common that some Mexican guides have started handing out
condoms to women sneaking across the country so they could ask their
attackers to use them, according to Oscar Martinez, a journalist from
El Salvador who spent a year traveling with Central American migrants
across Mexico while writing a book.

Last year, Mexico detained and deported 64,000 undocumented workers,
the vast majority from Central and South America, according to the
National Migration Institute. Many of those caught here are kept in
overcrowded detention centers where detainees are often forced to
sleep on bare floors and lack medical care.

Just a few years ago, Mexico deported more than 200,000 illegal
migrants a year. Experts say the lower numbers are a result of tougher
enforcement on the U.S. border, a weak U.S. economy and the surge in
violence faced by migrants in Mexico.

It is rare for the crimes to be reported by migrants, who fear contact
with Mexican authorities will get them deported. Rights groups say
Mexico granted very few humanitarian visas last year to alleged
victims of crimes so they could stay here and testify against alleged
attackers.

Joel Millman and Jose de Cordoba contributed to this article.