After a Tragic Fire, Mexico’s President Feels the Heat
Activists call the death of 40 migrants in Juarez a “state crime.”
Migrants in Ciudad Juarez make a banner with the names of the men killed by fire at a National Migration Institute detention center. April 5, 2023, Photo by Cony Gutiérrez.
Activists in Ciudad Juarez are calling the fire at a National Migration Institute (INM) detention center that killed 40 migrants and seriously wounded 27 others on March 27 a “state crime.” After the fire started, guards who could have released the trapped men walked away, allowing the cells to burn. Five people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy.
Most of the victims were Guatemalan — many of them Indigenous — and others were from Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela. Vice News is reporting the detention center was used to extort migrants, who were released if they could come up with $200.
“The migrants were illegally detained in the streets of the border city through a series of operations carried out by municipal and state police, INM agents and the National Guard,” according to a statement signed by five grassroots organizations in Juarez. The street sweeps targeted migrant men as they sold handicrafts or panhandled in different parts of the city.
“This state crime is the result of the migration policies adopted by the Mexican state, which is subordinated to the United States, which has imposed its ‘security’ agenda on México,” reads the statement, released April 6. “México has become the guard dog for our neighbor to the north’s border.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visited Juarez in the wake of the fire but avoided publicly meeting with migrants, some of whom, together with local activists, attempted to block his motorcade.
López Obrador falsely accused the activists who protested his visit of having been sent by Maru Campos, the governor of Chihuahua state who is a member of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN).
On April 5, Juárez activists again joined with migrants to remember the 40 men who burned to death in the detention facility, which sits directly across the border from downtown El Paso, Texas.
Migrants lit candles, called out the names of those killed, and hung banners of their names from the fence outside the INM’s Juarez offices. Organizers in the border city are calling for a global day of action against xenophobia on April 10.
Read more from Dawn Marie Paley on Mexico’s immigration politics and policies here.
Your support matters…Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
A settlement agreement is upheld that dictates children must be released as quickly as possible, not held indefinitely with their parents.
A court fight will almost certainly follow over the government's desire to hold migrant families until their cases are decided.
Appeals court officials say the government must provide safe food and water as well as sanitary conditions under a longstanding agreement.
A border patrol agent assigned to the detention center in McAllen, Texas, details his experience caring for migrant children.
Instead of funding an immoral immigration policy, legislators could shift priorities to help millions of families lead better lives.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.