Migrants coming across the southern Mexican border are interviewed by authorities to determine if they are eligible for asylum in Mexico. Although most do not want to stay in Mexico, securing Mexican asylum is important because it permits them to travel north out of the southern states toward their universally shared goal, the United States.
Rules for obtaining asylum in Mexico are similar to those in the U.S., in that economic aspirations do not qualify. This is a problem in that financial reasons are what most would-be asylees are prone to cite under questioning. Doing so can be a deal breaker.
To assist the naive, truth-telling migrant, the United Nations, which maintains a high-profile presence in the area, has adopted a novel approach: it has employed teams of clinical psychologists skilled in uncovering within the migrants’ heads so-called “repressed memories” of past torture and human rights violations, memories the migrants themselves did not realize were there. Through this “therapy,” often strategically employed before the interview, migrants are able to recall asylum-ready memories of past repression. They thereby receive Mexican residency cards, which they carry until reaching the U.S. border and then discard.
In a January 24 posting to the CIS.org website, correspondent Todd Bensman discloses the scheme, quoting from a telephone interview with Enrique Vidal, of the Fray Matias de Cordoba human rights center:
The most common mistake migrants make during interviews . . . is that they are saying that they are suffering economic hardship. It’s not one of the criteria for refugee status. That may cover up one of the true reasons why they are coming. They need psychological help so they can remember the situation they experienced.
Vidal claims the technique has resulted in a 90 percent acceptance rate.
The very concept of repressed memories is highly debatable, and most psychologists today question its legitimacy. According to Wikipedia, it is “a controversial, and largely scientifically discredited claim.” Yet for organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is hiring these psychologists with funds obtained largely from U.S. taxpayers, any tactic is justified if it gets more of the third world excess into the United States.
For more, see CIS.org.