<media 7142>Entrevista 22</media>

Father José Alejandro Solalinde Guerra is the coordinator of the south-eastern zone for the Pastoral Dimension for Human Mobility (Dimensión Pastoral para la Movilidad Humana, DPMH) and director of the Hermanos en el Camino Migrant Shelter in Ciudad Ixtepec, in the state of Oaxaca. The shelter provides humanitarian assistance for migrants, as well as legal support for those who have been victims of the kinds of crimes which are commonly perpetrated against migrants, such as kidnapping or robbery. In May this year, the National Migration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migración, INM) accused the priest and the Honduran Jeimy Celenia Moncada, before the National Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR), of the trafficking of minors. Father Solalinde believes that the INM, by accusing him of being a 'pollero' [people smuggler] and child trafficker, was attempting to undermine his moral authority. PBI accompanies Father Solalinde and interviewed him in September 2010.

In your opinion, why have you been a victim of criminalisation?

The most recent defamatory statements against me are because I am really an obstruction to the fulfilment of Plan Mérida, at least as the Mexican State understands it. The United States have not asked that migratory flows be controlled by trampling on human rights, but the Mexican State understands it so, especially in regard to migration. That’s why I am considered a hindrance... <media 7143>Download the complete interview</media>

See the documentaries by Gael García and Amnesty International about migrants in Mexico and the work of Father Solalinde

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