Global Courant
By Laura Gottesdiener, Ted Hesson, Mica Rosenberg and Daina Beth Solomon
(Reuters) – REYNOSA, Mexico Sept 29 (Reuters) – When Carolina’s kidnappers arrived at dawn in late May to take her from the warehouse in the Mexican border town of Reynosa, she thought they would force her to call her family again in Venezuela to beg them to pay a $2,000 ransom.
Instead, one of the men pushed her into a broken-down van parked outside and raped her, she told Reuters. “It’s the saddest and most horrible thing that can happen to a person,” Carolina said.
A migrant lawyer who represented Carolina after the kidnapping, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, confirmed all details of her story.
The attack came amid a rise in sexual violence against migrants in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros, both major transit routes for immigrants seeking to enter the U.S., according to data from the Mexican government and humanitarian groups, as well as interviews with eight sexual survivors of the attack and more than a dozen local emergency responders.
“The inhumane manner in which smugglers abuse, extort and commit violence against migrants for profit is criminal and morally reprehensible,” said Luis Miranda, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in response to questions about the increase in reported rapes.
Criminal investigations into the rape of foreign nationals, excluding Americans, were the highest ever in the two cities this year, according to state data from 2014 to 2023 obtained by Reuters through freedom of information requests.
The U.S. State Department considers Tamaulipas, where the two cities are located, the most dangerous state along the U.S.-Mexico border.
‘Torture trial’
Faced with record numbers of illegal border crossings, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration in May switched to a new system that required migrants to make an appointment — through an app known as CBP One — to present themselves at a legal border crossing to clear the to enter the United States.
Nine experts, including lawyers, medical professionals and emergency workers, told Reuters that the new system has had unintended consequences in the two cities, contributing to a spike in violence.
The high risk of kidnapping and sexual assault in Reynosa and Matamoros is one of the factors pushing migrants to cross the border illegally, four advocates said. The number of cross-border crossings increased dramatically in September.
Biden officials say the new CBP policy is more humane because it reduces the need for migrants to pay smugglers and criminal groups to bring them across the border illegally.
The experts said many asylum seekers are no longer paying smugglers to get them across the border, but are instead traveling to the border themselves, hoping to make an appointment via the app.
But criminal groups still demand that these migrants pay to enter their territory, the experts said.
“Rape is part of the torture process to get money,” said Bertha Bermúdez Tapia, a sociologist at New Mexico State University who studies the impact of Biden’s policies on migrants in Tamaulipas.
The Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel both operate in the region, kidnapping migrants for ransom, especially those who arrive without protection from smugglers, security analysts said. Reuters was unable to contact the two groups.
Some migrants are also spending more time in the dangerous region, waiting for an appointment via the app. According to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), tens of thousands of people compete for 1,450 slots every day.
A senior CBP official in Washington said CBP was troubled by reports of sexual abuse of migrants in the two cities.
“It’s definitely something we’re concerned about,” said the official, who requested anonymity as a condition of the interview.
U.S. authorities in June temporarily suspended CBP One appointments in another Tamaulipas border city, Nuevo Laredo, due to “extortion and kidnapping concerns,” the official said.
However, Miranda, the DHS spokesperson, said the administration’s policy made it unnecessary to wait at the border because migrants from other parts of central and northern Mexico could book an appointment.
According to CBP statistics, more than 250,000 migrants have scheduled appointments through the CBP One app, and more than 200,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have entered the United States by air under a separate Biden humanitarian program.
‘TAKE HER’
Carolina said she arrived in Reynosa on a commercial bus the night of May 26 with her 13-year-old son. Men started following them as soon as they arrived at the bus station, she said.
“They said we couldn’t be there without their permission,” she said from Chicago.
The US State Department warns that criminal groups in Tamaulipas are targeting buses “often carrying passengers and demanding ransoms.”
The men took Carolina to a house where she said she and other migrants were raped.
She said she was released after family members paid a $3,100 ransom. Reuters could not independently verify the payment. She did not report the attack to the police, saying she saw no point in it.
An Ecuadorian woman said her captors repeatedly allowed a drug dealer to rape her while in captivity in Reynosa in exchange for his delivery of a white powder she suspected was cocaine.
One night, she clutched her Christ Child statue, tiptoed past her sleeping captors, and escaped through the window. “I still have nightmares,” she said from New Jersey in August.
Reuters is withholding the full names of the survivors at their request. To corroborate their stories, Reuters reviewed medical and psychological reports; criminal complaints and legal declarations; financial data, photos and videos provided by the survivors, attorneys and advocates.
The Attorney General’s Office has opened seven investigations into rape of foreign women in the first half of 2023. Four were opened in June alone.
Only one of the eight survivors Reuters interviewed reported the attack to authorities: a Honduran woman who said she was raped in a migrant camp in Matamoros in late May. No one has been arrested, authorities said.
Olivia Lemus, head of the Tamaulipas Human Rights Commission, said official data represents a fraction of the cases. “Migrants are afraid to report crimes,” Lemus said. “The fact that there are not more reports does not mean that this crime is not happening.”
Mexico’s National Migration Agency, Tamaulipas Security Agency and Mexico’s Foreign Ministry did not answer questions about sexual violence against migrants.
Juan Rodriguez, head of the Tamaulipas Migrant Services Agency, said the agency was “paying attention” to the issue.
“Unfortunately, sometimes things happen. We can’t deny it.”
A Venezuelan migrant said he was kidnapped by a cartel in Reynosa in May while traveling to the border for his confirmed CBP One appointment. He couldn’t raise the full $800 ransom, so he had to work for two months to pay off the remaining $200, he said.
Two other migrants who said they were held at the house during the same period confirmed that the man was forced to work against his will and that they heard of female migrants being raped.
On the nights when the Venezuelan man was tasked with keeping watch over the other migrants, he said he watched as cartel members asked the man in charge of the house for permission to rape the women of their choice.
He said the answer was always the same: “Take her.”
(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Reynosa and Matamoros, Ted Hesson in Washington, Mica Rosenberg in New York City and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City. Additional reporting by Jackie Botts in Mexico City, Daniel Becerril in Reynosa and Matamoros, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco (edited by Mary Milliken and Suzanne Goldenberg)
