TIJUANA – The remains of hundreds of would-be immigrants found in graves in northeast Mexico prove that that country is the greatest violator of the human rights of vulnerable groups, according to a leading Mexican researcher and U.N. special representative.

"Behind every body found at one of these sites, which we continue to find in our country, there is obviously one or more violations of the victim's human rights," said Jorge Bustamante. "When we tally up the bodies that have been found this year alone, we could conclude that Mexico is the world champion violator."

Bustamante is one of the most respected researchers and social anthropologists in Mexico. Some 29 years ago, he founded a think tank called the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef), whose mission is to conduct scientific research on the U.S-Mexico border region.

He's also an independent researcher for the United Nations, which has tasked him with the job of making recommendations to improve the lives of vulnerable populations.

Bustamante spoke at a seminar at Colef on Tuesday focused on the security relationship among Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The researcher explained that the discovery this year of nearly 300 bodies in clandestine gravesites in the northeast border state of Tamaulipas has sparked a budding public awareness in Mexico about the human rights violations of immigrants, particularly from Central America.

Federal authorities believe drug cartel members kidnap would-be immigrants from Central America and southern Mexico traveling by bus to the U.S.-Mexico border. The criminals hold the victims for ransom, at times killing them and burying them in remote gravesites.

These crimes have not only been committed by organized criminals, Bustamante said. Local law enforcement agencies also have kidnapped the migrants, as has been documented by Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights, he said.

Bustamante said that save for the firing last year of the director of the agency that oversees immigrants' affairs in Mexico, Cecilia Romero, the federal government has not reacted to these crimes, as if it didn't have a conscience.

That's because neither the Mexican nor the U.S. government cares what happens to immigrants, he continued, because each has mistaken perceptions about them.

One of these views holds that what happens to immigrants is their fault because they willingly risked their lives by leaving their country.

These negative perceptions persist despite the important role the funds the migrants send back to their families play in the national economy.

The situation is no less dramatic for Mexican and Central American immigrants living in the United States, he said. He noted that Alabama recently enacted legislation that is tougher on Hispanics than Arizona's SB 1070.

The Arizona law authorizes, among other things, any law enforcement agent in the state to check the immigration status of anyone they stop based on "reasonable suspicion" that the person is an undocumented immigrant.

"There is nothing more subjective than 'reasonable suspicion,'" he said.

Bustamante added that the "reasonable suspicion" is nothing more than allowing skin color to become the main factor prompting authorities to act, which in the United States is referred to "racial profiling."

"In practice, this legislation is no different than the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany, that authorized the detention of any person that appeared to be Jewish," he said. "In judicial terms, they are very similar."

Bustamante lamented the fact that immigration raids in Latino communities have not been widely covered in the mainstream news media in the United States nor have many politicians in either country protested their use.

Omar.millan@sandiegored.com