Two UN-sponsored groups in southern Mexico are said to be guiding migrants arriving there with "repressed memories" that would allow them to obtain asylum cards in Mexico to cross north and then enter the United States illegally. .
Both the Jesuit Society of Refugees and a group called Fray Matias de Cordova, based in Mexico City Tapachula near the border with Guatemala, advertise "psychological" help in shop windows there, according to Todd Bensman, a security associate at the Center. for Immigration Studies, which favors greater restrictions on immigration.
In these sessions, which are said to have been attended by thousands of immigrants, people are being helped to recall memories of alleged trauma to their homelands, Fray Matias de Cordova's Enrique Vidal told Bensman during a visit to the south last month. By claiming to be victims of such abuses, immigrants may be entitled to asylum in Mexico even if, as in many cases, their original application for financial hardship has been rejected.
"With their new recollections of more eligible claims," Bensman wrote on his organisation's website, right now to cross Mexico and enter the US border illegally. "
The concept of repressed memory and its reliability as evidence has proven to be controversial in American jurisprudence. In the 1990s, several high-profile cases involving day care centers made headlines, with stories of children being subjected to bizarre sexual and satanic rituals.
Subsequently, some experts have sought to disprove the validity of "repressed memory" as a source of credible evidence. While there is widespread agreement that a memory of horrific and traumatic experiences can sometimes be buried, such memories can also be created, according to academics who have delved into psychology.
Bensmann asked Vidal from the Border Assistance Team if "the people you are helping [have already] made the mistake of not reporting their traumatic experiences to the authorities" for asylum or refugee, referring to their appeals.
"Yes, it is," Vidal replied.
According to excerpts from the interview, Vidal told Bensman that his team had achieved a "high success rate" - over 90 percent - helping clients overcome previous denials in Mexico and obtain the necessary documents for immigrants from the countries of the "Northern Triangle". Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador; as well as from Haiti and other countries, and continue to travel north.
The Jesuit Society of Refugees did not respond to requests for comment from RealClearInvestigations regarding its Tapachula activities and, in particular, its psychological counseling sessions.
The United Nations and the Mexican embassy also did not answer questions. RCI left a phone message for Vidal in English and Spanish, but the call was not returned.
Bensman said he traveled to southern Mexico in January because Mexican authorities detained thousands of migrants in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco at the request of the Biden government, which wants to slow down the torrent of people heading north and north.
Crowds of immigrants in Tapachula have led to strained relations between Mexicans and illegal immigrants, and last week the city of 350.000 was in the news when twelve illegal immigrants sewed their mouths shut and Reuters called "an attempt to persuade the immigrant service to allow them to cross the US border ".
During his trip, Bensman said he was confused by the shop window signs offering "psychological" services in Tapachula, about 1.500 miles south of the U.S. border. Immigrants told him the sessions offered a new opportunity to obtain an asylum card which, once issued by Mexico, allows a person to travel freely within the country.
"They need Mexican asylum, residence cards," he said. "This is the card that allows them to travel across our borders."
During their interview, Vidal told Bensman that his team offered the advice because many people are being unfairly denied asylum cards. He agreed that many people want to immigrate to the United States for economic reasons, but that, he said, is not the only reason.
Hence the psychological counseling, which seems to be offered on both an individual and group basis.
"They need a lot of psychological help to clear things up in their memory so they can remember what happened in their country," Vidal said, citing "various acts of violence, sexual abuse, detention and / or torture." ”
When Bensman pressed, asking if counseling could not "train" such memories, Vidal cited the success rate of more than 90% of gaining refugee status in Mexico as proof that people were telling the truth.
"If in most cases people lied, we would not succeed, the authorities would not approve of our cases as refugees," Vidal said. "If we have a high success rate [it] is because [it is] the truth about what people say. "Because it is very difficult for an immigrant to lie because of the consequences of immigration and the authorities will find out."
Vidal added, "The other thing is that we have a very good relationship with the authority responsible for asylum procedures, which is different from that of the Immigration Act. And this principle believes in us in our work and in our organization ".
RCI asked two prominent experts — Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California, Irvine and Richard McNally of Harvard University — about the issue of "repressed memory." Although both of them are not familiar with what is happening in Tapatsula, the practice is problematic, they said.
"I only know about the suggestive treatment activities that lead people to memories of sexual abuse," said Loftus, who helped uncover a "repressed memories" hoax in Wenatchee, Washington that led to 29.726 deaths in 4. "It is possible that similar activities could occur in immigration interviews that lead people to construct memories that will serve a useful purpose."
Source: Realclearinvestigations.com
