Citation: 2020 RLLR 119
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: July 7, 2020
Panel: Camille Theberge Ménard
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Mabel E. Fraser
Country: Mexico
RPD Number: MB7-12502
Associated RPD Number(s): MB7-12711, MB7-12712, MB7-12789
ATIP Number: A-2021-01106
ATIP Pages: 000001-000006
REASONS FOR DECISION
INTRODUCTION
[1] These are the reasons for decision in the refugee protection claims filed by [XXX] and [XXX], who are alleging that they are citizens of Mexico and who are claiming refugee protection under section 96 and subsection 97(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
[2] [XXX], you were appointed as the designated representative for the minor children.
ALLEGATIONS
[3] You fear senior leadership of the [XXX] department of the State of Tabasco, Mexico.
[4] [XXX], you stated that after you were hired, you reported many anomalies and indicators pointing to corruption to your supervisor, whom you trusted. However, she was ultimately cooperating with the individuals you had reported. You stated that you received many veiled threats.
[5] An altercation then took place on [XXX] 2017, in which your wife was followed in a vehicle and stopped by an armed man who appeared to be a soldier. She stated that he was surprised to see her with a child; she attributed his surprise to the fact that you are the one who usually drives the truck she was using that day.
[6] You then stated that some men entered the shop run by you and your wife. They asked for you and demanded that you pay them so they could ensure your safety.
[7] You then lost your job without any justification and you received death threats in connection with your shop, which prompted you to seek refuge in Quintana Roo.
[8] After arriving there, you received text messages on your cellphone containing death threats. You tried to settle there. However, after a job interview, a company higher-up from Mexico City mentioned you could not be hired due to problems you had had with influential individuals. You again feared even more for your life and your family’s lives and decided to leave the country.
[9] You believe that you have neither a viable internal flight alternative (IFA) nor access to state protection.
DETERMINATION
[10] I determine that, on a balance of probabilities, you would be personally subjected to a risk to your life or to a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment if you were to return to Mexico, for the reasons that follow.
ANALYSIS
Identity
[11] I find that your identities have been established by means of your testimony and the copies of your passports filed on the record.[1]
Credibility
[12] I find that you are credible witnesses; therefore, I believe your main allegations in support of your refugee protection claims.
[13] Your testimony was sincere and did not contain any relevant inconsistencies. There were no relevant contradictions between your testimony and the other evidence before me that were not satisfactorily explained.
[14] You indicate in the first version of your written account that the senior leadership, whom you fear, sent you polite messages but you specified during the hearing that they were veiled threats. You explain the content of the messages, with details, in an amended written account filed after you changed lawyers. Given the circumstances in your file, I find that the details you brought forward during the hearing and in the amendment to your written account explain this difference between your testimony during the first hearing and your first written account.
[15] You also failed to discuss the threatening text messages you received on your cellphone after you arrived in Quintana Roo. You first explained that you had focused on the elements you were able to demonstrate and that there had been a lack of communication between you and your first lawyer. Given the very specific circumstances of your case, the reasons why you were forced to find a new lawyer and the fact that you provided numerous documents to support your allegations as a whole, I find that this omission is reasonably justified.
[16] As for the documents you filed to support your claims, you filed a note indicating that you had indeed been hired by the [XXX] department. You also filed examples of official letters that you had sent to your supervisor to report the irregularities and acts of corruption that you kept track of at work.[2]
[17] You also submitted photographs[3] of the shop you ran, as you stated, while you also worked at the [XXX] department. You also provided photographs of the shop’s closing[4] and the threats you stated you received, written across it. Finally, you also filed photographs of the truck[5] in which the female claimant was threatened.
[18] The panel has no specific reason to doubt the credibility of these documents and finds that they are probative in supporting your allegations of fear.
[19] In order to establish that you are a “person in need of protection,” you must demonstrate that there is a serious possibility that you would be subjected, on a balance of probabilities, to a risk to your life, to a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment or to a danger of torture if you were returned to Mexico.
[20] I find that the evidence submitted in support of your allegation establishes that there are, on a balance of probabilities, serious reasons to believe that you would be subjected to persecution or the other alleged harm.
[21] You received many threats from influential [XXX] department personnel whom you had tried to report. Meanwhile, you were getting visits from criminal group members who were extorting money from you. During the hearing, you indicated that the people visiting your shop addressed you by the title you had at the [XXX] department. You also alleged that these individuals were paid by the influential personnel of the department and you consider that this demonstrates that the area’s criminal groups are connected to the department.
[22] Not only did those people threaten you and your family, but they also followed your wife while she was driving your truck, which suggests the threats were becoming increasingly serious.
[23] Furthermore, the objective evidence in the National Documentation Package (NDP) on Mexico confirms that corrupt federal officials and their ties to various criminal groups are a significant and ongoing reality in Mexico.[6]
[24] The city of Tabasco, where you lived, is in the lowest tier of safe cities, which means it is one of the cities in Mexico with one of the highest crime rates and impunity rates for both crime and human rights abuses.[7]
[25] I find that it would be objectively unreasonable for you to seek state protection considering the particular facts of your refugee protection claim. In addition to the previously cited documentary evidence confirming the high impunity rate, the individuals who threatened you and whom you fear hold important public administration positions and they therefore have significant influence and resources that enable them to be informed of your undertakings if you were to try to file a complaint against them.
Internal flight alternative
[26] I also assessed whether you have an IFA available to you. I find that there is nowhere in the country where you would not face, on a balance of probabilities, a risk to your lives or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.
[27] When you sought refuge in Quintana Roo with your family, you continued to receive threatening messages on your cellphone. The content of these messages indicated that the individuals who were looking for you were aware that you had left the area for the location where you were hiding. After that, you tried to find a job in that region and you were told that you must have been having problems with important individuals, because the head office of the company you were applying to had decided not to hire you. This situation demonstrates that your name had been given to an organization, with significant reach beyond the city of Tabasco and influence in Mexico City. That was when you learned that you would not be safe anywhere in Mexico. The panel agrees.
CONCLUSION
[28] For the above-mentioned reasons and after analyzing all of the evidence, I determine that you are “persons in need of protection” within the meaning of paragraph 97(1)(a) or 97(1)(b) of the IRPA.
[29] I therefore allow your refugee protection claims.
[1] Document 1 — Information package provided by the Canada Border Services Agency and/or Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: passports.
[2] Document 6 — Exhibits P-6 to P-9.
[3] Document 6 — Exhibit P-11.
[4] Document 6 — Exhibit P-12.
[5] Document 6 — Exhibit P-14.
[6] Document 3 — National Documentation Package (NDP), Mexico, August 30, 2019, Tab 2.1: Mexico. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2018, United States, Department of State, March 13, 2019; Document 3 — NDP, Mexico, August 30, 2019, Tab 1.5: Mexico Peace Index 2019, Institute for Economics and Peace, April 2019, page 74/98.
[7] Idem, Tab 1.5.