“Migrants from the Ágape shelter protest abuses by the FGE in Tijuana”

Tijuana Baja California September 23, 2022
By: Oscar Ramirez

Tijuana.- Around 300 migrants have protested in the courtyard of the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE). Today the migrants from the Ágape shelter run by Pastor Alberto Rivera gathered outside the well-known bus station to walk towards the courtyard of the State Attorney General’s Office. The reason is the denunciation of the migrants to the same prosecutor’s office since in the past few days some agents of the state entity tried to enter the shelter without a search warrant. The director of the shelter commented that they suffer political reprisals and above all threats from the same agents to the shelter, as reported by Pastor Alberto Rivera.

“We are suffering political reprisals against the shelter and there have been several times that we denounced against the prosecution because they have entered our shelter without any search warrant, we have to have a good dialogue without threats and so of course we let them in” .

Yesterday, an anonymous complaint of human trafficking was made inside the shelter, which triggered the prosecutor’s office to arrive at the scene demanding to enter to attend said anonymous complaint. Regarding this accusation, the director of the Ágape shelter told us.

“ The agents wanted to force their way into the shelter and the migrants told them in a peaceful manner that we cannot let them in, which led to a threat from these agents to the migrants saying “We are going to close the shelter and that all the children Those who are inside will be taken to the DIF and those who do not have legal documentation will be deported to their countries.”

It should be noted that the State Attorney General’s Office does not have the authority to make a decision to deport or repatriate migrants, regarding this Pastor Alberto Rivera told us.

“It is a violation of our rights and secondly, the prosecution does not have the power and I consider it an abuse of authority because they do not have a search warrant or permission, of course we can talk and at this point we already think that it is a political retaliation for that we have previously denounced against the prosecution”.

90% of the migrants who were present today are from Mexico from the states of Michoacán and Guerrero, fleeing persecution and threats from organized crime.

A migrant from Guerrero tells us that it is not fair for the prosecution to take this type of retaliation since they are fleeing insecurity.

“We are here fleeing from crime in Guerrero but unfortunately here in the shelter the government seems to want to evict us, they are threatening to take our children away from us and take them to the DIF, it is the prosecutor’s office and it does not seem fair to us.”

The migrants walked to the court of the prosecutor’s office where the director of the shelter spoke on the esplanade with a microphone and loudspeaker addressing the prosecutor’s office or the state attorney.

” Here we are all the members of the shelter where you threatened to take away the children of their parents from migrants, here I am showing my face and we are all demanding that the prosecutor come out and tell us where they have gotten this accusation of human trafficking in our shelter, it is not fair that they threaten vulnerable people.”

On past occasions, the Ágape shelter has suffered attacks on the facilities by organized crime, including in one of these attacks a migrant was injured by a bullet, which ended up in a wheelchair and barely managed to request refuge on North American lands.