Mexico City Evictions Violate International Law, Experts Warn

ByMexico Solidarity

This article by Manuel Cosme originally appeared in the September 23, 2025 edition of El Sol de México.

Evictions in Mexico City are carried out without respect for international standards, because they occur in the early morning hours, and city police and porters intervene, damaging tenants’ property and sometimes acting violently, denounced Daniela Sánchez Carro, coordinator of the María Luisa Marín Legal Clinic on Housing Rights at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Participating in the forum “Housing is not a luxury, it’s a right,” he referred to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and General Comment 7 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states in its paragraph 11 that although some evictions may be justifiable, due to persistent non-payment or damage to rented property, the competent authorities have the obligation to ensure that affected persons have appropriate legal remedies; and that the operation does not occur at night or in adverse weather conditions.

In her presentation, the professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana explained that, on the contrary, in Mexico City, evictions begin in the early morning, sometimes with riot police, porters are involved, and the bailiff is authorized to arrive in the early morning or on a weekend to carry out the eviction. “This is operating against international law,” Sánchez Carro criticized.

The consequences, he continued, are the separation of families because children go to one house and parents to another, when the international standard is to preserve family unity and keep people together in one place.

“It’s important to provide these people with decent housing so they know where to go and have temporary shelter from eviction. However, it has to be adequate alternative housing, keeping in mind that the shelters we sometimes provide for those affected don’t meet hygiene and habitability standards,” said the coordinator of the María Luisa Marín Legal Clinic on Housing Rights.

At the beginning of his talk, she emphasized that in the capital and in the country in general, there is a serious problem regarding the civil eviction process because the local Civil Code practically evicts tenants on their own, since the legislation on the matter is precarious.

For this reason, she announced that the Housing Rights Legal Clinic, to which she belongs, is about to release a manual analyzing eviction proceedings. This manual aims to provide practical tools to people facing eviction proceedings. Although legal advocacy exists locally, it is not sufficient.

There are many examples of international standards not being met in the nation’s capital, and testimonies from those affected include the bailiffs arriving in the early morning hours leading a group of workers and, without saying a word, breaking down locks or doors, stealing everything they can, and violently evicting people from their homes.

Blanca Reyes, visual artist and teacher, narrated her experience in a video to which El Sol de México had access, in which she explained how a group of men, some of them young, arrived, in the early morning of May 3, 2023, to the building where she lived, on Fernando Ramírez Street 148, Obrera neighborhood, Cuauhtémoc mayor’s office, where they threw out the 21 families who lived there, without the intervention of the police or the authorities.

When the evictors arrived at her place, she said she managed to grab her tablet, computer, cell phone, and her cat, only to see the porters steal bicycles and printers, while throwing others onto the sidewalk.

“I left in shock, I was totally in shock, because they had taken my home from me.”

The artist went to the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico City to file a complaint, but the people in charge of handling it ignored her.

She added that she had lived there for 10 years, but some neighbors had lived there for as long as eight decades. “Watching them be torn from their homes was very hard.”

More recently, there was the case of the residents of a building located at 11 República de Cuba Street. There were 19 families who were thrown out onto the street along with their belongings on August 28 of this year. Many of them were elderly people with chronic illnesses.

Manuel Cosme has been a reporter since 1985, and holds a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from ENEP Acatlán.

  • People’s Mañanera October 22

    President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on rainfall emergency response, aid delivery, passenger trains, taxation and the fight against invoice mills.

  • Campesinos Ride Again

    Last week’s strike by agricultural producers against the USMCA and the uncontrolled entry of subsidized grains from the US is part of a fight for Mexican food sovereignty that demands the government’s full attention.