EL PASO — A Mexican journalist seeking asylum in the U.S. after reporting on police brutality gave up his fight and returned to his country last Tuesday after spending nearly four months in an immigration detention center he described as “hell.”
Martin Mendez Pineda, 26, arrived on the Texas-Mexico border in February and asked for asylum at the Paso del Norte International Bridge in El Paso. The reporter said he was fleeing death threats in Guerrero, where he worked for the Novedades Acapulco newspaper.
His lawyer, Carlos Spector, Reporters Without Borders and the Borderland Immigration Council, a coalition of immigration lawyers and advocacy organizations, had urged U.S. authorities to release the Mexican journalist while his case moved through the immigration court.
“Undoubtedly, he’s still at risk,” said Balbina Flores, a Reporters Without Borders representative in Mexico. Flores said the organization is in contact with Mendez but won’t reveal his location because it might jeopardize his safety.
This year is on pace to become the deadliest for reporters in Mexico. Six reporters have been murdered, the most recent last Tuesday in Sinaloa. A gunman killed Javier Valdez Cardenas in Culiacan near the offices of Rio Doce, the newspaper he founded. Valdez renowned for his award-winning work covering Mexico’s drug cartels.
“The conditions in Mexico have gotten worse year after year. There are entire regions where journalists are living under threat,” said Marcela Turati, one of the founders of Periodistas de a Pie, an organization fighting to protect journalists and freedom of expression in Mexico.
Turati said Guerrero, the state where Mendez worked, is routinely on the list of most dangerous places for journalists. It’s the same state where 43 students disappeared in 2014.
Mendez Pineda said he feared for his life after reporting on police brutality in Guerrero in 2016. He said armed men came to his home, where they assaulted and threatened to kill him. Numerous death threats followed. He fled to the border Feb. 5 and was taken into custody by ICE.
“The government is forcing people to decide between being locked up indefinitely and going back to somewhere where people want to murder them,” said Alan Dickerson, a member of the Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee, a community group based in El Paso.
In a letter written after his first attempt to get parole was denied, Mendez described the Sierra Blanca Detention center in West Texas as “small, with metal bunks, worn-out rubber mattresses, wooden floors, bathrooms with walls covered in green and yellow mold, weeds everywhere and snakes and rats that come in at night.”
ICE released a statement in response: “ICE remains committed to providing a safe and humane environment for all those in its custody. ICE’s civil detention system maximizes access to counsel and visitation, promotes recreation, improves conditions of confinement and ensures quality medical, mental health and dental care. ICE detains individuals in accordance with our National Detention Standards.”
ICE denied Mendez requests for parole because he “did not establish to ICE’s satisfaction substantial ties to the community” or prove that he was not a “flight risk,” according to a letter sent to Mendez
Dickerson said ICE had the option of requiring the journalist to wear an ankle tracking device and check in periodically rather than keeping him in the detention center.
Mendez gave up after his second attempt for parole was denied this month. Rather than wait for his asylum case to be decided, he returned to Mexico last week.
Mexican reporters who used to view the U.S. as a safe haven are now looking elsewhere, Turati said.
“It’s Europe, South America: some have gone to Canada,” she said. “They don’t want to go to the U.S. and be re-victimized.”
