EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Immigration Officials Allegedly Selling Humanitarian Visas to Migrants

Mexican immigration officials have been allegedly pulling out all the stops to illegally make as much money from migrants before the government places their teams in leadership positions. The actions come as a new administration is expected to take office in Mexico next month.

Breitbart Texas spoke with director-level officials at Mexico’s National Migration Institute, who revealed details of what has become common practice whenever there is a change in leadership.

The INM sources revealed that individuals in positions of leadership sell documents, charge for favors, and extort migrants and travelers to make as much cash as possible before they are moved out.

One INM source revealed that Carmen Yadira De Los Santos Robledo, the current INM regional delegate in Yucatan, has been pressuring her staff into demanding bribes and illegally selling travel documents.

De Los Santos has been the target of previous internal affairs investigations. Due to her close connections to current INM commissioner Francisco Garduno, she has not faced any consequences and has only been relocated to protect herself and her staff, the source stated. Her most recent move came in 2022, when she was assigned to Yucatan to cover up an internal affairs investigation and even some protests by migrants in the state of Chiapas.

De Los Santos had been assigned to Yucatan after serving in Chiapas, where she had her staff extort migrants and was accused of targeting Cuban migrants. In some cases, her staff detained and extorted Cuban travelers who had legitimate documents but were told they were not valid and were threatened with detention and deportation.

The information in some of the internal affair documents that Breitbart Texas had access to revealed that fellow INM agents accused De Los Santos of pressuring them to collect illicit fees in cash that would then be sent up the chain of command.

The IA documents revealed that one of the incidents points to De Los Santos charging between $1,500 and $2,000 in dollars for a humanitarian visa card. These cards were printed and sold to migrants, but not documented and not inputted into the INM system.

Another document revealed that while she was assigned to the Chiapas region, she set up a series of private offices outside the Siglo XXI station, where she and her close friends would have private immigration services. The tactic involved INM agents denying permits, documents, or finding some obstacle for migrants and travelers. They would then have to go to the outside offices where De Los Santos and her associates would sell solutions to the problems.

The issues in Chiapas led to protests by migrants, as well as internal complaints by agents who claimed to be victims of various types of abuse if they refused to take part in the corruption.

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.     

Williams Cortez from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles Project contributed to this report.