Implementation of the Mexican Legal Reforms that Prohibit Detention of Accompanied and Unaccompa Migrant Children

Human rights organizations in Mexico have been advocating for alternatives to detention for migrant children for over 10 years. The impact of immigration detention on children and families has been documented throughout the world, yet in Mexico immigration detention has been an ongoing practice despite hundreds of cases of sexual assault, verbal and physical
abuse, and death due to medical negligence documented within the more than 58 detention centers in Mexico.

In 2014, Mexico passed a new Law on the Rights of Children and Adolescents (LGDNNA) that included language prohibiting the detention of unaccompanied migrant children. In compliance with international law, the Regulations to the LGDNNA state that no migrant child, unaccompanied or accompanied, should be detained in immigration detention centers because it is never in the best interest of the child.3 However, the National Migration Institute (INM) of Mexico continued to detain unaccompanied and accompanied children because the Law on Migration (LM) established that migrant children could be detained. As migrant detention in Mexico is the norm, the INM refused to release children until the LM was reformed.