Photo: AP

On Sunday, October 31, in Huixtla, Chiapas, the National Guard fired at a truck and caused the death of a Cuban migrant. The Guard’s justification is that the driver of the unit tried to ram them and “seeing their integrity at imminent risk,” they fired their weapons to stop the vehicle.

This is not the only case that has been documented. Unfortunately –and although it is the first time that the federal government admits that the National Guard wrongfully took the life of a migrant person– the actions of this militarized body over the control of human flow already warned of the possibility that the situation would reach these extremes.

Practically from its birth, the National Guard has been tasked with migration control activities, for which its elements are not prepared, using a security approach instead of a human rights one. This has created truly regrettable scenes of officers with military training chasing migrant women, children, and men and blatantly abusing the use of force in these operations.

As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN had already warned, the use of military personnel in tasks that should be carried out by specialized civil servants, particularly as migrants are people in vulnerable situations, increases the risks of serious human rights violations.