Buenos Aires. Among the harsh measures that Security Minister Patricia Bullrich has begun to apply by order of President Mauricio Macri will be an increase in the number of foreigners who will be expelled from the country for committing alleged crimes, while the "friendly" justice system has rejected an appeal by a humanitarian organization against the official protocol for the use of firearms in the repression of crimes, which means impunity in police action, and validates the "easy kill" that takes so many lives in the poorest areas.
The federal court of Junín, in the province of Buenos Aires, which is headed by Judge Héctor Pedro Plou, rejected an appeal for amparo filed by the "Linqueños for Human Rights" Association against this protocol and reaffirmed the "constitutionality" of this measure - against the opinion of important local jurists who are also preparing other amparos - and even decided to impose the payment of costs on those who requested the amparo.
In the case of immigrants, Minister Bullrich had failed to tell the truth when she said last November that 20 percent of prisoners in Argentina are foreigners, but there was no precision in this case, which was denied by experts on prison issues who estimate that of the 85,283 people held in prisons in the provinces, only five thousand 108 are of other nationalities, which means less than six percent.
If these figures from the provinces were added to the 13,392 from the Federal Penal Service, there would be a total of 98,675 detainees in Argentina, of which only eight percent are foreigners, around seven thousand. These figures take into account people detained without sentence, as the portal points out El Destape in his investigation where he says that Bullrich "deliberately lies". There are 46,000 196 prisoners who have not been sentenced and among them there is a high number of foreigners who, like the rest of those in these conditions, should not be detained.
According to the new security measures being taken by the government, which - as cited by various local media outlets - comes after the announcement of former captain Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil on January 1st, Macri would be toughening up this policy, considering "the good results" that the issue of insecurity has given him under the current Brazilian president.
This has led him to speed up the expulsion of foreigners who have allegedly committed crimes or who have entered the country illegally, for which he is preparing a list of a thousand who would be removed from the country in the short term. To this end, a Migration Forum and a special unit to search for foreign criminals will be set up, all before the elections in October this year.
Reports in television investigations have shown the number of people and even families in poor neighborhoods to whom the police have planted drugs. This could very well be used by police officers, who are already experienced in making "narcotics" appear in the pockets of anyone they want to accuse, as well as in raids on family homes.
In one of the most scandalous cases, the police detained a woman accused of "splitting" drugs, i.e. making cocktails for a woman seriously affected by Parkinson's whose body and hands were permanently broken, and she was held for four months in a prison in violation of her human rights due to her condition.
This - as it is used in other countries - could be used against immigrants, just as they used to be unjustly accused of stealing or "planted" "Marxist" books during the cold war or "subversive letters" during dictatorships.
The program they are proposing to implement would also lead to the creation of a special chamber to speed up the procedures, which would be sent to Congress. According to the newspaper Clarín, the minister explained that in order to expel a foreigner, a very long process has to be carried out and this special chamber could speed up the procedure a lot.
Last November, the director of Migration, Horacio García, had suggested modifying the legislation on the "expulsion system" for citizens from other countries who "transgress" local rules, and in this sense he mentioned that those who arrived in recent years could be "rehoused". Prisons for immigrants have also been created, which is rejected in a country where millions of foreigners arrived after the First and Second World Wars.
The president, since he was head of the city's government (2007-2015), has wanted to tighten security measures and since then he has wanted to buy Taser guns and has bought a lot of weapons to suppress internal conflicts, but he has also referred to the issue of immigration in terms that are considered discriminatory and racist.