A/HRC/EMRIP/2019/2 than half of the Sami population in Finland lives in urban areas outside the Sami homeland.66 49. While many indigenous peoples leave rural environments as a response to, inter alia, failed services, their needs are not always better met in urban areas. Their arrival often puts a strain on already stretched urban infrastructure and established communities. Indigenous workers too often do not have decent working conditions, standards of health, housing, transport or education and often experience labour exploitation and discrimination, including being refused rental property and access to bars and restaurants. Causal factors include: a lack of concern, politically and legally, over their situation; discrimination; their invisibility in the urban context; and a lack of understanding of the singularity of indigenous migration, usually moving in groups rather than individually. 50. The lack of intercultural support in urban settings can contribute to a loss of identity. In some states in the United States, urban centres for indigenous people were set up to maintain cultural ties. One group of the Triqui peoples, which moved from their home state of Oaxaca to Mexico City, established a community, purchased land and asserted collective self-determination in their new location: a situation formally acknowledged by the City of Mexico. D. Specific challenges from cross-border migration 1. At the border 51. For all migrants (indigenous and non-indigenous), border crossings are often locations of arbitrary arrest and detention, abuse, arbitrary and collective expulsion, racial profiling, extortion, kidnapping, drug trafficking, human trafficking, death, lack of access to adequate health services, food, water or shelter and an absence of due process rights or respect for rights (see A/HRC/39/17/Add.2). Detention may itself result in other cumulative forms of ill-treatment, including lack of interpretation, separation of children from parents, poor conditions, inedible food, verbal abuse, physical assaults and being stripped naked. If perpetrated at the hands of State agents or without the protection of the State, such treatment may amount to violations of their rights. 52. Recent reports67 indicate that there is a lack of understanding of the specific needs and rights of indigenous peoples at border crossings. In terms of language, there is often an assumption that indigenous peoples crossing international borders speak the language of the State of departure or most recent entry, as at the Mexico/United States border, where it is reported that indigenous peoples were provided with Spanish interpreters, although they spoke only indigenous languages. This contributed to misunderstandings and reports of deaths (cause unreported) in border detention. 68 53. Indigenous peoples also suffer disproportionately from discrimination such as the impact of border walls, as a deterrent to migration, on indigenous peoples, as on the Mexico/United States border. 69 The fear of discrimination and lack of identity documentation also has an effect on the identification of indigenous groups at the border, affecting their inclusion in humanitarian responses. 70 54. Reports of the involvement of federal police in incidents of violence with impunity against indigenous peoples creates distrust among indigenous peoples of border authorities (see A/HRC/33/42/Add.1). The criminalization of irregular migration is also a challenge, as 66 67 68 69 70 https://lacris.ulapland.fi/fi/publications/safeguarding-cultural-rights-of-smi-children-and-youth-infinland-with-special-emphasis-on-the-linguistic-part-of-cultural-identity--currentchallenges(556f7f3e-08b1-480f-85de-fca0c62b990f).html. IOM, Legal Aspects of Assisting Venezuelan Indigenous Migrants in Brazil. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/17/guatemalan-girl-jakelin-caal-maquin-death-crossing-usborder. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/USA/INT_CERD_ALE_USA _8210_E.pdf. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) submission. 13