Since June 2013, 38 foreigners – most of them middle-aged males from the United States – convicted in their home countries of sexual crimes against minors have been refused entry into Mexico by immigration staff working at the Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta airports.
Speaking this week at a press conference, National Immigration Institute (INM) Delegate in Jalisco Ricardo Vera Lira said the operation was part of a nationwide program known as “Angel Guardian.” If a foreigner entering Mexico with a previous conviction for such offenses appears on an INM officer’s screen, the person is taken away for further questioning.
They will be turned back, Vera Lira said, if they “cannot accredit a motive or reason for entering national territory.”Vera Lira said refusing a foreigner entry to the country is not the same as deportation. He added that once denied entry, these people effectively are personas non-gratis in Mexico and will continue to be turned away if they try to enter the country again.
He said airlines are obliged to take passengers who are refused entry to Mexico back to their home countries.
Vera Lira added that not all those who were refused entry had completed their sentences; some were still on parole and presumably not allowed to travel abroad.
In a separate statement, Jalisco Government Secretary General Arturo Zamora said the majority of the foreigners in question were males aged between 45 and 68 and from the United States, Two of them were female.
In a slightly different take on the issue, Zamora said the foreigners were “deported” because they represented a “danger for the population of Jalisco.”
Zamora urged people in Puerto Vallarta to be alert to anyone behaving suspiciously toward minors or children.