Mexico's Fox pledges to protect Salvadorans en route to U.S.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Reuters) -- Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox on Wednesday pledged to end the "brutal reality" Salvadoran migrants face in Mexico as they try to make it into the United States.

Central American nations complain that their citizens are forced to pay bribes to Mexican officials or face abuses ranging from theft to rape.

"The offences and injustices committed against Central Americans by bad authorities in my country will end," Fox said during a speech to El Salvador's National Assembly on the last day of his four-day Central American tour. "This brutal reality will disappear under my government."

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Fox, who in July dealt Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) its first presidential election defeat in 71 years, said he would ask Mexico's human rights commission to visit jails and immigration checkpoints to ensure that the rights of Central Americans are respected.

Before his speech to the legislature, Fox met privately with President Francisco Flores to discuss issues including migration.

In a joint news conference with Fox, the Salvadoran president called for "a human solution" to migration problems and respect of migration laws.

Illegal immigration long has been a sore point between the United States and Mexico, which share a 2,100-mile (3,000-km) border. The issue heated up this year after reports that ranchers in Arizona were organizing vigilante operations to hunt down Mexican illegal immigrants.

But Mexico's protests to the United States over the treatment of its migrants, dozens of whom die each year crossing deserts and rugged mountains, contrast with its silence over the way it deals with Central Americans coming over the border from Guatemala.

Border towns in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas invariably have red-light districts where underage Central American girls work in brothels or bars.

Migrants frequently say that immigration officials force them to pay bribes, and that they are easy prey to criminal gangs. Every week, Mexico expels dozens of Central Americans.

At least 20 Salvadoran migrants have died in Mexico this year, and 21,630 others have been returned to El Salvador, according to El Salvador's government.

"We are truly committed to making an extraordinary effort to guarantee the human rights of Salvadorans crossing Mexican territory," said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, one of Fox's international affairs advisers.

Aguilar Zinser said Fox, who takes office Dec. 1, had received many reports from human rights groups about abuses against illegal immigrants carried out by Mexican officials.

The former senator added that Fox had addressed the immigration issue in Guatemala and Honduras, previous stops on his Central American tour, and that the Mexican president-elect had received "strong complaints."

Fox was due to travel to Nicaragua later on Wednesday.

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