Background:
Migration is a key issue for both the United States and Mexico as it was stated by presidents George Bush and Vicente Fox, in Guanajuato, in February 2001, when they attached the utmost importance to issues affecting the quality of life along our common border.
The tragic loss of life along the United States-Mexico border is of concern to both governments. Both governments have made great strides in creating a safer border environment and combating human smuggling and trafficking. In recent years, the Arizona-Sonora area has become increasingly dangerous for migrants. Both governments recognize that migration and its relationship with border safety are a shared responsibility.
The tragic death of 139 Mexican migrants in the Arizona-Sonora area last year highlights the pressing need for continued coordinated efforts to ensure safe and legal movement between Mexico and the U.S., and for considering and evaluating the potentials and consequences of expanded avenues for legal entries of Mexican nationals to the U.S.
Both governments have implemented, unilaterally and bilaterally, efforts to improve border safety and security along our shared border. These efforts include the Border Safety Initiative (June 1998), the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation against Border Violence (February 1999) and a Plan of Action for Cooperation on Border Safety (2001) as well as a number of unilateral enforcement and safety efforts. Additionally, the governments of Mexico and the United States have agreed to review and enhance existing consultation mechanisms as an instrument to guarantee an adequate coordination among Mexican consuls and officials of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). These consultation mechanisms are a valuable resource that deepens bilateral efforts related to consular notification and consular access for the protection of Mexican nationals in the United States.
To enhance these efforts, the United States and Mexico have endorsed the implementation of a set of measures on border safety and security, pursuing the aim of strengthening the protection of Mexican migrants at the border and to combat organized crime linked to human smuggling and trafficking.
The set of actions included in the following Action Plan are based upon the Plan of Action for Cooperation on Border Safety of June 2001. The principal goal is to update and strengthen the institutional efforts implemented and to establish new lines of action where needed.
I. Action Plan Objectives:
The Action Plan is oriented to improve border safety and security between the United States and Mexico through the following actions:
- Enhance existing media information and prevention programs.
- Combat human smuggling and trafficking.
- Combat border violence.
- Intensify public outreach to prevent migrant crossings in high-risk areas.
- Coordinate responses to border emergencies.
- Ensure secure and orderly repatriations of Mexican nationals.
- Explore mechanisms, on a bilateral basis, to repatriate Mexican nationals to their places of origin.
- Strengthen consultation mechanisms between Mexican Consuls and DHS authorities.
- Strengthen the Border Liaison Mechanism.
II. Specific Actions
a) Media Prevention Programs.
Preventive Actions
- Reinforce existing informational and preventive media campaigns initiated through the 1998 Border Safety Initiative and reaffirmed under the Plan of Action for Cooperation on Border Safety (June 2001).
- Strengthen public safety campaigns in Mexico and the United States to educate and inform potential migrants, and those who coordinate their smuggling arrangements, of the imminent dangers of crossing the border through high-risk areas. An emphasis will be placed on the callous practice of smugglers and the dangerous conditions along the border.
- On a coordinated basis, review and evaluate the impact of the campaigns and exchange the results.
b) Combat Human Smuggling and Trafficking
Intelligence and Security Actions
- Expand the ongoing binational effort to combat and dismantle alien smuggling trafficking and criminal organizations by providing additional resources used to identify and target alien smuggling and human trafficking networks.
- Continue to review and evaluate the outcomes of this bilateral program by holding periodic meetings.
- Strengthen binational coordination among law enforcement agencies to combat human smugglers and traffickers on both sides of the border.
- Expedite and reinforce the exchange of bilateral information that targets migrant smugglers and traffickers.
- Map high-risk areas along the border to have an accurate portrait of new routes and implement preventive actions to reduce migrant risks.
- On a joint basis, update intelligence on human smugglers and traffickers, particularly their profiles and modus operandi (places, routes, procedures, networks), as well as the mechanisms used to evade the action of the authorities.
- On a coordinated basis, update intelligence information about the financial structures of human smuggling and trafficking organizations, in order to detect, impede and dismantle their illicit activities.
- In the case of Mexico:
- Strengthen the presence of Mexican law enforcement authorities along the routes used for human smuggling and trafficking organizations in Mexico.
- Strengthen deterrence measures along the southern Mexico border, with an emphasis on human smuggling and trafficking organizations, in order to inhibit the committing of these crimes in the border with Mexico.
Protection Measures
- Reinforce existing binational training programs on border safety and migrant search and rescue operations.
- In the case of Mexico:
- Strengthen permanent inter-institutional mechanisms for surveillance on the border region through Beta Groups with the support and intervention of different law enforcement agencies at the three levels of government.
- Strengthen Beta Groups in high-risk areas, especially in Sásabe, Nogales and Agua Prieta, Sonora .
- Intensify the presence of authorities in land terminals and airports where the highest flows of migrants are detected, in order to warn them about the risks of crossing through dangerous areas at the border.
- Intensify surveillance actions on migrants’ routes in high risk areas.
- Analyze key socioeconomic factors that impact the migration problem and implement a development plan for border communities whose economy is supported by activities linked to human smuggling and trafficking (transport, housing, feeding).
- Establish inspection points with the collaboration of different Mexican law enforcement authorities in specific areas such as Sásabe, Sonoyta and Agua Prieta, Sonora area to reduce and inhibit the violent activities associated with smuggling and human trafficking.
c) Border Violence
- Jointly strengthen bilateral cooperation on preventive actions in order to:
- Prevent assaults against migrants;
- Prevent assaults against Mexican and US border authorities;
- Prevent and deter illegal actions against migrants by civilian groups (vigilantes).
- Jointly Implement the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation Against Border Violence (1999) and its application guidelines.
d) Prevention of crossings in high-risk areas
- Review and improve inter-institutional strategies to warn migrants about the risks of crossing through dangerous zones.
- Encourage information exchange on this matter among federal and local law enforcement agencies of both countries, so that they may design prevention plans.
- Jointly improve communication among Mexican authorities, especially Beta Group officers, with Border Patrol officers to identify and coordinate responses to situations that jeopardize the lives of migrants.
- Jointly explore establishing radio communication capabilities between Mexican and U.S. authorities, especially Beta Group officers and Border Patrol officers.
- Mexico will conduct land and air surveillance operations to detect migrant groups in danger to help them.
e) Response to Emergencies in the border zone
- Update bilateral information and strategies focused on the search and rescue of migrants in high-risk areas.
- Continue search and rescue training for law enforcement agencies of both countries, particularly the special rescue groups (BORSTAR and Grupo Beta), to help migrants in life-threatening incidents.
- Mexico will identify suitable locations for the establishment of migrant assistance centers, in order to better aid and protect migrants.
f) Secure and orderly repatriations
- Review, update and guarantee the fulfillment of the existing arrangements on secure and orderly repatriation processes on the border in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Homeland Security of the United States of America and the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and the Secretariat of Governance of the United Mexican States on the Safe, Orderly, Dignified and Humane Repatriation of Mexican Nationals (MOU) 2004.
- The Mexican Government will enhance assistance centers for migrants throughout the border to aid and guide migrants in their journey back to their places of origin.
g) Repatriation to places of origin
- Explore, on a bilateral basis, mechanisms to carry out the repatriation of Mexican Nationals to their places of origin, especially from high-risk zones in the United States and during the summer season to avoid injury and loss of life among migrants.
h) Strengthening of the consultation mechanisms in the United States
- Strengthen the coordination of consultation mechanisms in the United States between Mexican Consuls and the officials of the Department of Homeland Security concerning the repatriation of Mexican nationals to the border.
i) Strengthening of the Border Liaison Mechanisms
- Both governments will strengthen the tasks of the Border Liaisons Mechanisms as instruments that help to prevent and implement actions to protect Mexican migrants at the border with the United States.
III. Coordination Commission
- A Coordinating Commission will be created with the objective to coordinate the implementation of the present Action Plan. The federal government agencies of both countries that participate in the Homeland Security and Border Cooperation Group established in November 2003, in the XX Mexico – U.S. Binational Commission, will integrate the Commission.
- The Coordinating Commission will be co-chaired by the Secretariat of Governance and the Secretariat of Foreign Relations in Mexico and by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State in the United States. The Secretariat of Foreign Relations will coordinate the efforts towards the strengthening of both the consultation mechanisms and the Border Liaison Mechanisms with the corresponding agencies in the United States.
- The Coordinating Commission will suggest concrete responsibilities for each agency as well as the modalities of their participation. It will also stimulate the consensus needed for the definition of short, medium and long-term objectives, as well as the different tasks, action lines and schedules to achieve its goals.
- It is planned that the Commission will hold meetings every six months alternating locations between Mexico and the United States, with the purpose of evaluating the advances of the Action Plan. However, the agencies that coordinate the group can request a meeting whenever necessary. The agencies that comprise the Commission will be in continual communication. The Commission will periodically inform the responsible authorities of both governments about the advances of the Action Plan.
- The Coordinating Commission for the implementation of the present Action Plan will also work as a forum to strengthen and enhance the proposals and actions included in this institutional instrument to support and help migrants at the border with the United States.
Signed in Mexico City, on the twentieth day of February of the year two thousand and four, in three originals, in the Spanish and English languages.