Mexico City | Desinformémonos. The UN Human Rights Office in Mexico (UN-HR) expressed its concern over President Claudia Sheinbaum’s proposals for a new National Guard Law and reforms to the General Law of the National Public Security System and the Law of the National System of Investigation and Intelligence in Public Security Matters, which “would put at risk the right to privacy and other human rights.”
“In addition to consolidating its undue military nature, the new National Guard Law would grant its members broad investigative and intelligence powers, without the appropriate controls and accountability mechanisms,” criticized the UN-DH this Friday about the initiatives being addressed by Congress.
It added that “also of concern” are the powers that would be granted to the military to process intelligence information, “as well as other provisions that, without adequate safeguards, would put at risk the right to privacy (provided for by art. 17 of the ICCPR) and other human rights.”
Despite the opposition from human rights organizations, and defenders of freedom of expression and digital security, on June 24 the Chamber of Deputies approved the National Guard Law and the reforms to the secondary laws on the matter, which include, among other points, the transfer of the National Guard to the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), the surveillance of communications by the army and the possibility for military personnel to run for elected office.
The reforms completely eliminate civilian control of the body and grant full management of its administrative and operational functions to the military. In addition, the National Guard will now be empowered to conduct covert operations, use “simulated users,” access geo-referenced data and intercept communications.
“The consolidation of surveillance power without control for the Armed Forces, the weakening of control mechanisms and the establishment of a State that permanently monitors society through databases and mandatory records are a direct affront to the minimum rights and liberties in a democratic context,” criticized organizations such as Article 19 and the Network in Defense of Digital Rights (R3D).
The ruling was approved in general on Tuesday with 349 votes in favor cast by Morena, PVEM and PT legislators, during the second day of the extraordinary period of sessions in the Chamber of Deputies.
Original text and photo published in Desinformémonos on the June 27th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.
National Guard Law: The Ongoing Bid for Militarization
In recent days we have witnessed the development of a new chapter of militarization in our country, a pattern that for two decades has characterized public security policy in Mexico in the context of the generalized crisis of violence and insecurity. In continuity with the transfer of the National Guard to the Secretariat of National Defense approved by the Congress of the Union last September, this Tuesday the Chamber of Deputies approved in general terms a new National Guard Law whose original bill also provides for the reform of nine related laws.
As many civil society organizations and the media have warned, this new law means another step backwards in terms of human rights, not only because of the intrinsic and already demonstrated risks that militarization entails as a privileged mechanism to address violence in the country, but also because of what is derived from other provisions that would be approved and that transcend the National Guard, such as the strengthening of intelligence work in the hands of the armed forces.
In the face of citizen criticism, the official narrative has denied that the National Guard and its transfer to the Defense Department represent a measure of militarization of the country. It is often argued that the real militarization occurred with the Army’s departure to the streets since 2006, which was certainly one of the biggest episodes of militarization in Mexico. However, contrary to this narrative, the specialized literature considers the military deployment in public security tasks as direct militarization and, at the same time, as only one of the multiple features of militarization as a broader concept in the analysis of public reality.
Indirect militarization is understood as the assignment of civilian tasks to the armed forces, as well as the incorporation of military logic into civilian institutions. The creation of the National Guard with military features and its subsequent transfer to Defense are clear expressions of this militarization, just as the strengthening of the armed forces’ tasks and the expansion of their powers are worrisome signs of militarization, regardless of how they are associated with the concept of national security.
We find ourselves, then, confronted with a long series of actions carried out over decades with which the role of the military institutions has been gradually strengthened. In Mexico, this is not a process exclusive to one political party, but a dynamic sustained during four presidential administrations of different political parties, which have granted military institutions a role, resources and trust superior to those granted to civilian institutions, disseminating in parallel among society a discourse that assures the supposed incorruptibility of all military corps, which would constitute its main source of legitimacy.
To the risks involved in this process, given the weakening of the country’s democratic ethos and institutionality, must be added its proven ineffectiveness as a mechanism for ensuring public security. Today, the widespread deployment of the armed forces, with practically no controls over their exercise and use of force, has not been able to sustainably reverse the rates of violence or implement a permanent pacification policy that would allow for a real fight against macro-criminality and the reconstruction of the social fabric.
On the contrary, 19 years after the deployment of the military in public security tasks in the country, the balance is more territories absent from institutional control; and, on the other hand, a long list of cases in which the lethality of the intervention of the armed forces has increased the state’s deficit in access to justice.
Events of recent months, such as the murders of six migrants in Chiapas, of two young men in Chihuahua, of two civilians in Nuevo Laredo, and so many more cases of extrajudicial executions or arbitrary detentions -especially against migrants- show the ineffectiveness that the armed forces have shown to date as an instrument for the pacification of the country. Evidence of this is that the National Guard and the Sedena were two of the institutions with the most complaints before the CNDH during the previous six-year term.
Events of recent months, such as the murders of six migrants in Chiapas, of two young men in Chihuahua, of two civilians in Nuevo Laredo, and so many more cases of extrajudicial executions or arbitrary detentions -especially against migrants- show the ineffectiveness that the armed forces have shown to date as an instrument for the pacification of the country. Evidence of this is that the National Guard and the Sedena were two of the institutions with the most complaints before the CNDH during the previous six-year term.
What is at stake is not only the crisis of violence, but also the very agenda of democratic strengthening, promotion of human rights, pacification and social reconciliation. As many expert voices and organizations defending victims and human rights have pointed out: the path for an adequate pacification of the country points in the opposite direction to the one promoted by the last three federal governments and that the current one deepens with this new legal reform.
We cannot grow tired of repeating that the generalized crisis of violence and insecurity must be addressed through the strengthening of civil institutions, through the care, training and professionalization of the police, through the reform of the prosecutors’ offices and the Public Ministry to guarantee effective access to justice, through the adoption of regional security strategies designed based on a deep knowledge of the specific contexts, through the adoption of a prevention approach that addresses the structural causes of violence, and through the limitation of the use of the armed forces in an extraordinary, strictly temporary manner and with the proper institutional controls, both internal and external.
Original text by Mario Patrón published in La Jornada on June 26th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.