Migrants in detention in Mexico must have access to healthcare, a judge has ruled

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By Oscar Lopez

MEXICO CITY, April 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A judge ordered the Mexican government to extend its coronavirus protections to migrants, ruling that health care be guaranteed to detainees and temporary residence permits given to those especially vulnerable to the disease.

The ruling, made public on Friday, came after more than 40 advocacy groups and charities filed a legal challenge claiming the country's government agencies were failing to protect migrants and asylum seekers from the pandemic.

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Mexico has registered 6,297 cases of the coronavirus and 486 deaths.

The number of coronavirus cases is expected to hit a peak by May 10 in the populous capital of Mexico City and surrounding areas.

"(The virus) doesn't discriminate against people's nationality or country of origin. It affects all of us," said Ximena Suarez, an attorney with Sin Fronteras, one of the advocacy groups in the case.

"We're quite happy ... that migrants seeking international protection will at least have someone keeping an eye on them," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The government declared a health emergency on March 30, ordering non-essential businesses to close and asking the population to stay at home.

But those protective measures did not extend to migrants, rights groups said, creating fear due to the pandemic.

Late last month, tensions over the virus' spread exploded into a riot inside a detention center in southern Mexico, leaving a Guatemalan migrant dead and 14 others hospitalized.

"It was really because of people's desperation at the fear of contagion," said Suarez.

The ruling by the Mexico City judge ordered authorities to identify detainees with symptoms of COVID-19 to avoid contagion and to ensure migrants have access to information on protective measures.

The ruling also asked the government to report the number of migrants in detention and their vulnerability to the virus.

Anyone deemed particularly susceptible such as the elderly must be released, it said.

The Mexican refugee agency, COMAR, announced in March that it would temporarily halt the processing of asylum requests.

Some 70 thousand migrants applied for asylum in Mexico last year, more than double the number of applicants in 2018, according to data from COMAR. Almost six thousand people applied for asylum in January this year.

A spokeswoman for the country's interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement earlier this week, the ministry said all local and federal authorities "must guarantee universal access to medical care to all people regardless of...nationality or legal situation in the country."

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(Reporting by Oscar Lopez, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

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