Calderón smacks INM - "no immigration corruption" will be tolerated

Last week Mexico announced the firing of 121 federal INM agents. The Instituto Nacional Migración processes visa applications, citizenship requests and all other matters pertaining to migrants, regardless of where, when or how they crossed Mexico's borders. The agency has been beset with corruption in recent years.

"We're not going to stop in our efforts to clean it up and strengthen it," said president Felipe Calderón. "Without a doubt, it's been a prisoner of corruption, of arbitrariness, and all of the abuses must be eliminated."

Calderón made his comments at the beginning of National Migration Week 2011. He said that the same respect for human rights which Mexico demands the U.S. show for undocumented persons living in that country, Mexico will extend to the undocumented within its own borders, especially to people from Central and South America. Concerning that issue, Calderón said that Mexico will decriminalize illegal migration, which he urged the United States to do as well.

The president delivered his remarks yesterday in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

More on the recent firing of corrupt INM agents: http://mexicogulfreporter-supplement.blogspot.com/2011/11/mexico-fires-121-immigration-agents-for.html.