The “floor fee” reaches migrant shelters

TIJUANA, Baja California.— The “floor fee”the extortion of racketeering that is in record levels in Mexico, has already reached the migrant shelters on the border con USAwhere activists fear closing shelters due to death threats they receive from gangs.

What was once considered an open secret among Migrant advocates in Tijuana, The managers and coordinators of these shelters have publicly denounced this, where They report harassment, criminal infiltration, extortion and death threats.

He Pastor Gustavo Banda Aceves, director of the Ambassadors of Jesus shelterthe largest in Tijuana, housing 1,300 people and located in a vulnerable area on the outskirts, was one of the first to publicly denounce threats from organized crime.

Aceves Band He assured EFE yesterday Monday that the threats come mainly from protecting Migrants and Mexicans displaced by violenceof whom “crime is used to profit in different ways from the adverse situation in which they find themselves.”

“They have threatened us by phone, they want to collect a fee, but nothing has happened. We have filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Officebut absolutely nothing has happened, Before we had surveillance, now we are unprotected by the authorities,” he said.

“Floor Fee” in Mexico

He “floor fee”, as it is called in Mexico to the extortion in which a criminal group demands money from organizations and companiesgrew by 45.3% during the presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador before the previous six-year term, the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic denounced (Coparmex) in May.

Just from January to April last year, There were 31 victims per daymore than one extortion per hour, Coparmex said based on data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (Sesnsp).

In addition to businesses, threats of crime now affect activists such as Susana Barrales, coordinator of The Little House of Trans Union, and Exclusive shelter for migrants and trans refugees.

Susana Barrales told EFE that the death threats she receives “are related to the shelter,” which is why she now feels like she lives “with a panic button on everywhere.”

“This year I have received four death threats.”

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