CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico warned Tuesday it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops detain migrants on the border and some officials said they fear the crackdown will force illegal crossers into more perilous areas to avoid detection.
President Bush announced Monday that he will send 6,000 National Guard troops to the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border, but said the troops will provide intelligence and surveillance support to U.S. Border Patrol agents and will not catch and detain illegal immigrants.
"If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people ... we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates," Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said in an interview with a Mexico City radio station.
Mexican officials worry the crackdown will lead to immigrant deaths. Since the U.S. toughened security at crossing spots in Texas and California in 1994, immigrants have flooded Arizona's hard-to-patrol desert and deaths have increased.
Immigrant support groups estimate 500 people died trying to cross the border in 2005. The Border Patrol reported 473 deaths as of September 30.
In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Julieta Nunez Gonzalez, the local representative of Mexico's National Immigration Institute, said Tuesday she will ask the Mexican government to send a protection force, Grupo Beta, to remote sections of the border.
Sending the National Guard "will not stop the flow of migrants. To the contrary, it will probably go up," as people try to get into the U.S. with hopes of applying for a possible amnesty program, Nunez said.
Waiting to cross in Ciudad Juarez was Juan Canche, 36, who traveled 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) to the border from the southern Mexican town of Izamal, where he had left his wife, five children and mother.
"Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle," said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande, dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. "My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it."
Mexican newspapers Tuesday characterized the National Guard plan as a hardening of the U.S. position, and some criticized President Vicente Fox for not taking a stronger stand, though Fox called Bush on Sunday to express his concerns.
Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday that Mexico accepted Bush's statement that the Guard troops didn't imply a militarization of the area, and that Mexico remained "optimistic" that the U.S. Senate would approve an immigration reform "in the interests of both countries."
He noted Bush expressed support for the legalization of some immigrants and the implementation of a guest worker program.
"This is definitely not a militarization," said Aguilar, who also dismissed as "absolutely false" rumors that Mexico would send its own troops to the border in response.
Critics have accused Bush of using the plan to win support for immigration reform from U.S. conservatives, who are more interested in tightening border security.
Bush said it was a stopgap measure while the Border Patrol builds up its resources to more effectively secure the border.
Presidential hopeful Felipe Calderon of Fox's National Action Party issued a statement that the military presence would endanger migrants without stopping them.
"These measures have been proven mistaken. They increase the social and human costs for migrants and only benefit criminal groups that make money on the hopes and suffering of those looking for an opportunity," Calderon said.
Salvadoran President Tony Saca said he was worried that there could be an increase in abuses against immigrants because National Guard troops are trained to handle natural disasters and wars.
Along the border in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, Honduran Antonio Auriel said he was determined to make it into the United States.
"Soldiers on the border? That won't stop me," he said. "I'll swim the river and jump the wall. I'm going to arrive in the United States."
I was going to say the same thing can all those Central American countries sue Mexico for the shooting their citizens as they cross over into Mexico? This is fucking getting redicules. I'm as liberal as it comes but shit man how the hell you gonna sue someone for patroling their own border?
