Mexico’s rights agency criticizes strip search of migrants

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says private security guards at a Mexican immigration detention centre forced 17 Central American adolescents to strip and perform squats as part of a search for contraband.

The commission says the searches occurred in 2016 at a National Immigration Institute facility in the central state of Puebla and was in violation of the underage migrants’ rights. Their ages were not given.

The commission also said Sunday that searches should only be carried out by immigration agents on migrants’ clothing.

The youth should have been turned over immediately to child welfare authorities, it added.

Tens of thousands of Central American migrants are detained each year in Mexico as they attempt to reach the United States.