An immigration attorney in Mexico publicly exposed a network of immigration agents who he claims are using U.S. bank accounts to extort migrants to keep them from being deported and to release them with travel documents. The revelation comes as Mexico’s National Migration Institute is under scrutiny following a deadly fire that killed 39 migrants at one of their detention centers.
In a video shared on social media, attorney Jorge Vasquez Campbell provided the names of some of the agents and the way that they operate. Vasquez Campbell claimed to have filed several civil and criminal lawsuits in the past against corrupt National Immigration Institute (INM) agents and the institute itself for various corrupt practices. Immigration officials respond to the suits by deporting the migrants as a way to have the cases dismissed, he alleged.
The attorney claimed that INM agents and high-level officials are selling an extended exit permit for $500 USD. The permit gives the migrants 30 days to leave Mexico after being released in border cities like Ciudad Juarez. The payment for those permits is done by having relatives of the detained migrants make a deposit to a U.S. bank account. Those permits are sold to migrants who have been apprehended in Ciudad Juarez and surrounding areas. He identified agents Roberto Gaytan Sauceda, Daniel Goray Diosoca, Salvador Gonzalez Guerrero, and Jose Guillermo Ramirez as the ones collecting $500 per permit. He claims they average 70 releases per week.
In the city of Janos, the attorney called out Karina Guadalupe and Leticia Magallanes Contreras as the INM agents behind the scheme in that region.
According to the attorney, Mexican authorities and human rights groups have simply turned a blind eye to the case and those who have tried to come forward have been threatened by agents.
The claims made by Vasquez Campbell are similar to prior exposes by Breitbart Texas that detailed the widespread corruption within the INM, where agents have been captured on images demanding cash bribes or selling fraudulent travel documents.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.