A/HRC/11/7/Add.2 page 20 without delay whenever a migrant worker or a member of his family is arrested or detained, if so requested by the individual concerned. However, it was not clear the implementation of this law. Migrants interviewed in migrant holding centres affirmed not to have spoken with their legal representation. While this may have been obviated by the rapid return of certain migrants (especially those to Guatemala), migrants of other nationalities remained in detention without an indication of their legal rights or duration of detention. 75. Return depends on a bilateral agreement between the country of destination or transit and the country of the migrant’s citizenship (not necessarily the country of origin). It was evident in visiting the migrant detention centres that Mexico has a functional reciprocal agreement with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua whereby most undocumented migrants from these countries detained by Mexican authorities are released and returned promptly (often within two weeks but in many cases it is a matter of days, sometimes hours). Mexico often pays for the return of such migrants, as evidenced by the provision of ground transportation (tourist buses). 76. Bilateral agreements with other countries were not as evident. Cuba, for example, seems to be less tolerant of the outmigration of its citizens and, accordingly, less receptive of returned migrants, despite a Memorandum of Understanding with Mexico. Cuban migrants complained of waiting in detention without information about their stay duration or return. Those returned are potentially subject to persecution, as Cuban law criminalizes departure, raising questions about the non-refoulement of Cuban migrants under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. 77. As discussed throughout the report, physical and psychological assistance to migrants is a significant gap in Mexico’s level of protection. Holding centres provide a minimum of physical care, and rarely offer mental-health assistance. The scarcity of treatment available for victims of sexual and gender-based violence is a weakness. The cases of amputees and those mutilated in association with violence on the “train of death” and the poor medical assistance, indeed negligence, that follows, is alarming. 78. Undocumented asylum-seekers arriving through the southern border of Mexico pose a procedural challenge. The border between Mexico and Guatemala is extremely difficult to monitor and there are several hundred unofficial crossings along the border. At the official entry points there is no standard procedure for referral of cases, and apparently there is confusion about the ad hoc procedures in place. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that, since most people stay only for a few hours in the holding centre, it is their greatest challenge to identify possible asylum-seekers among the hundreds of undocumented migrants. In theory, every migrant is interviewed (either at the checkpoint or in the holding centre) and there should be a transcript of this interview recorded by INM, but this is not always the case. Civil society organizations report systematic expulsion of asylum-seekers who are awaiting the determination of their refugee status. 79. The National Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) in Tapachula analysed 224 cases in 2007. These cases originated from 26 countries. A bit fewer than half of the refugees were of Cuban, Salvadoran, Honduran and Guatemalan origin, none of whom were