Mexico's Tabasco migrants face rights violations amid corruption and criminal networks

Xico López Aguilar, regional head of Tabasco's State Human Rights Commission, travels the Tenosique‑Villahermosa bus route to warn regularised migrants that they may be stopped and extorted at checkpoints. He says migrants who have received refugee status are repeatedly detained and forced to pay bribes.

López reports about 1,000 documented rights violations in Tabasco, far above the historic average of 20‑30 cases per year. Many migrants are stranded in Mexico after being unable to cross into the United States or being deported there by the Trump administration, often as nationals of third countries. Although Mexican law guarantees the right to refuge, information, defence and protection, corruption in agencies such as the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) and the National Institute of Migration (INM) forces migrants to pay up to 20,000 pesos (≈1,000 euros) without progress on their applications and to use scheduled transport windows that operate only after payments are made.

These practices push migrants toward lawyers, traffickers and organised crime groups that profit from the migration flow.