Police arrested for extorting Cuban migrants

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico. – A hope of mixed feelings is drawn on his fearful face. For her. For them.

– Do you know that one of the state police officers who threatened you with death and deported you to Cuba to extort them from the hotel has been arrested? I ask.

– I feel a little comforted that justice is done, but I fear for my companions that were left behind and they still lack much. And I'm very afraid to return to Mexico, I just hope to stay on this side, protected by the American authorities. Only when I cross that bridge will I feel safe.

Lisney Vila Machín, 35, receives a call from her husband in Miami. It is about to move to the US side of the Paso del Norte-Santa Fe International Bridge. Two black plates with gold letters indicate the boundaries between the two border countries, in the middle of the bridge. His feet are now in Ciudad Juarez but a few seconds ago his hands slid towards the United States and that one of the two US immigration agents reviewed his documentation with an appointment at the Court of El Paso. It is his second date. Of which many of the other migrants she has known have been deported to their country of origin: more and more are deciding not to appear at that second Court in El Paso, Texas, where 98 percent of those denied political asylum cases, according to official figures. And they decide to see how to resolve their immigration status in Mexico or return to their countries. For her, there is no option.

Now this mother of two children is a migrant: with terror. Lisney's fears accumulated on her journey to seek asylum in the United States. From Cuba, to Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico.

On the last frontier towards his dream, terror came: on the morning of Sunday, August 25, when he was still sleeping. Around half past seven in the morning, six state police officers (five men and one woman) in units 049 and 012 raided a hotel. Hooded men and their service weapons stormed their rooms. They went expressly for Cuban migrants, who have become a spoil for criminals and corrupt security forces, who think that being the majority of white-skinned islanders and having many of them relatives in the United States, they can steal their money.

The seventeen Cuban migrants who stayed for months at the hotel while waiting for their turn to enter the United States or their asylum courts – within the controversial program of return to Mexico of the MPP – agree that the worst were not more than 2 thousand dollars that they stole, but they feared for their lives, as they continue to fear, even more since they dared to denounce the facts, something that most migrants do not dare to do. The brutal robbery of the state police officers in service was recorded in the security cameras, which they tried to turn off, as they did with the internet and telephone of the hotel.

Óscar Alberto Aparicio Avendaño is the head of the State Security Commission, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The chief of state police. In an interview with CubaNet, he says that one of his subordinates, agent Juan Armando N. was arrested for the alleged crime of extortion with aggravated penalty. He is in pretrial detention and during the next hours of this Friday, September 6, a hearing will be held before the judge, in the city of Chihuahua, to link him or not to process.

“This detention means zero impunity. We are fulfilling the commitment made by Governor Javier Corral three years ago, zero tolerance for corruption. Unfortunately, the other agents are fleeing justice but we will locate them and stop them, ”says Commissioner Aparicio.

-The crime that is charged to the agent Juan Armando N. is extortion with aggravated penalty. What can be the punishment that these state police can receive?

It can reach a maximum penalty of 30 years, it is a serious crime, and they are public servants. The punishment will be exemplary. This is what happens when they do things wrong, the police are there to protect the citizens.

The Cuban opponent Yuliesky Núñez Torres, 38, remembers how the hooded policemen threatened to kill him for not having more money, on a morning in which he slept after a week of hard work.

“I don't know what to think about that, since this country is so complex and so corrupt, I don't know what to think. I would like total justice for the six policemen, ”he says.

The detention of only one of them has triggered panic in other migrants. “We are terrified, we are afraid of them coming for us,” says a young Cuban born in Ciego de Ávila.

The president of the State Human Rights Commission, Néstor Armendáriz, recognized CubaNet “the courage of the migrants who denounced. These crimes are difficult to clarify because the victims are afraid and do not report, and sometimes video recordings are missing. ”

The arrest warrants will be made as soon as the facts are known by Commissioner Aparicio, two weeks ago.

“It's really plausible, sometimes these crimes remain in impunity. This helps deter bad acting. ”

At this time, the fate of Lisney Vila Machín is not yet known. The judge in the Court of El Paso admitted him for an interview of credible fear.

“I hope that on Thursday I will consider my case and that it will give me the shelter and protection that I am asking for. I ran away from my country and now in Mexico I find the same thing, ”he said before he was perched on a bus with dozens of migrants for the court hearing in which everyone asks for the same.

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