Thursday 28 October 2021 is D-day. I take off from Paris for Mexico.
I’m meeting a friend who has already arrived and is waiting for me at the hotel.
We land in Mexico City at 9pm. Super excited, I get off the plane and head for the customs posts to complete the formalities for entering the country. Once there, the customs officer starts asking me a few questions like “How long will you stay?” or “Where do you plan to travel?”, to which I respond that my plan is to do a road trip in South America and that I have my return ticket to Paris in 6 months. Therefore, I will exit and enter Mexico within this 6-months period, which is the official maximum amount of time an EU citizen can spend in this country without a needing a VISA.
I can tell from her facial expression that there is something wrong. “You have no right to do that”, she replies. She then asks me to follow her and take me to the back of the station, where she introduces me to one of her colleagues and explains that I will have to submit to further questioning. This moment is the very beginning of my descent into hell.
They immediately confiscate my phone, without even giving me time to contact my family or my friend and take me to a room where about twenty people of all nationalities are sitting. They ask me to wait here. The situation is stressful, but I keep my cool. I know I haven’t done anything wrong so everything should be fine. After an hour, a customs officer calls my name and takes me to his office. He makes me fill in a questionnaire and tells me I’m not allowed to enter Mexico if I haven’t booked 30 nights in a hotel. I’m in shock and answer it’s the very first time I’m hearing this, I haven’t seen this information anywhere before, and that I even had contacted the Embassy before my departure to explain my project, and they told me there wouldn’t be any issue.
Unfortunately, the officer doesn’t want to hear anything. And he refuses to return my phone back to me, so I cannot even book those 30 nights he’s talking about. Instead, he sends me back to the waiting room without even saying anything about what’s happening next. After one hour, another customs officer comes for me and have me following him. He asks me the same questions and even more. I repeat my story all over again and explain him I have a folder with all the documents and information related to my trip (hotel reservation of the first night, itinerary plan, plane tickets, etc.). He nods without even checking, as if he couldn’t care less. He sends me back to the waiting room again.
Half an hour later, the verdict falls. They are sending me back to France.
I cannot believe my ears! I start crying and ask them why. I cannot see any justified reason; I haven’t done anything wrong! But my questions and cries remain unanswered.
They take me to another room where I am asked to remove my jewellery, my shoelaces and to hand over all my belongings, in the exception of my money, that I must keep with me. I am sent to another room where there are only women and children. This is at this moment that I understand I’m in custody. The room is locked and guarded 24/7 by police officers. I still remember this room very well. No windows, neon lights on 24/7, TV on 24/7 and playing the same two movies repeatedly. Dirty bunk beds, without sheet or pillow.
I’m in tears and I beg a police officer for a phone call so I can contact my family. He declines and tell me I must wait. It’s only several hours later, around 9am, that a female police officer come to pick me up and allows me to make a phone call. I first have to write down the name and the relationship I have with the person I want to call on a register. And I only get two minutes. Not a second longer. I call my mother and explain the situation. I’m in tears but I tell her I’m fine. After exactly 2 minutes, they abruptly hang up the phone and take me back to my cell.
I wait here for endless hours without having any idea how long it will last nor what will happen next. I fluctuate between anxiety attacks and crying. I sometimes collapse from mental and nervous exhaustion. Minutes feel like hours here. This situation seems endless, I’m living a nightmare. I have knots in my stomach and cannot eat anything. Fortunately, I’m not alone and my fellow inmates and I support each other. One of the women who is here with her baby has been detained for more than 4 days, and her husband has self-mutilated on this very day because he’s locked in the men’s cell without having any idea what’s happening to his wife and son. I see people coming in and out. We’re all here for no justified reason. None of us understands what’s happening. We exchange our phone numbers on small pieces of paper so that we can give news when we get out.
It is 7pm, almost 24 hours after I have landed to Mexico City that I am informed I can finally get out. What a miracle! What a relief! I say goodbye to my fellow prisoners, thank them for their support and wish them good luck. I leave the room waving goodbye with a heavy heart. Some other inmates and I are escorted to the boarding gate. Together with me are two Frenchmen and a Russian guy. We all just went through the same experience: Being detained and then expelled from a country without any valid reason. Just like me the two Frenchmen were given the same excuse that they hadn’t booked 30 nights in a hotel, whereas their flight back to France was only 5 weeks after their arrival.
In the plane, the Air-France stewards could not believe their ears. Neither could the passengers who heard us tell our story. A disgrace, unbelievable, scandal, inhuman, trauma, were the words used. I even understood later that the police officers knew from the start the exact hour I would get out, but they wouldn’t say anything.
In Paris, I’m surprised that we are escorted by the French police as soon as we exit the plane. They welcome us with a lot of empathy.
“You are the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth French citizens who have been expelled from Mexico in the same conditions we escort today. And you are not the last ones of the day. It’s been going on for months”.
They give us our passports and let us go: FREE.
