Catholic officials in Mexico City welcomed the elimination of criminal penalties for undocumented migrants, many of whom pass through this country on the way north to the United States."It is without doubt a great humanitarian advance," the Archdiocese of Mexico City said in a written statement.
The statement added that the federal government frequently chides its northern neighbor for the mistreatment of Mexican migrants in the United States, but "violates the human rights of undocumented Central Americans."
Most of the illegal migrants in Mexico originally come from Central and South America.
Lawmakers said the decriminalization of migration would provide Mexico with increased moral authority when lobbying against anti-immigrant initiatives that would endanger the well-being of undocumented citizens in the United States.
"We have been demanding that the U.S. authorities ... not criminalize the migrant situation in the United States," said Fernel Galvez, a federal deputy from Chiapas, a state sharing a porous border with Guatemala. "But we haven't been acting very congruently since Mexico has been criminalizing immigration."
In late April, both houses of Mexico's Congress unanimously voted to scrap the sanctions for migrants entering the country without the proper documents. President Felipe Calderon still must sign the legislation for it to take effect.
The current law calls for punishment of up to two years in prison along with administrative fines, but such penalties are usually not applied because undocumented migrants often are deported.
The new law would make undocumented immigration an offense punishable by fines of up to 100 times the daily minimum wage of about $5.
Many undocumented migrants in Mexico report being preyed on by criminal gangs along with suffering abuse at the hands of unscrupulous police and immigration officials.
A report published earlier this year by the Migrant Ministry of the Mexican bishops' conference said the exploitation of migrants by organized crime, government authorities and kidnappers was on the increase.
President Felipe Calderon has sent soldiers and federal police to southern Mexico in an effort to stem the flow of migrants crossing from Guatemala.
"On the southern border, there are violent conditions and abuses on the part of government functionaries," Jorge Bustamante, special rapporteur on the rights of migrants for the United Nations, told El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper. "It's good that that there have been efforts by the Mexican government to improve the situation, but it hasn't significantly changed."
The changes in Mexico's enforcement efforts come as the number of migrants detained in the country has been falling.
Mexican immigration authorities arrested approximately 120,000 illegal migrants in 2007 -- a drop of 50 percent over 2005, according to the National Immigration Institute. A disruption in rail services after Hurricane Stan in 2005 and the closure of a busy rail line has made the journey north increasingly difficult, The Associated Press recently reported. Many migrants previously would sneak aboard cargo trains heading north.
Some undocumented migrants spill into the country on a regular basis in order to find jobs rather than make a run for the U.S. border.
Last fall Calderon unveiled plans that would allow for the legalization of an estimated 50,000 undocumented Guatemalans, who often work as domestic servants or laborers on coffee and banana plantations in southern Mexico.
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