Arrest warrants have been issued by Mexico for the death of a migrant in a fire
Investigations into the fire in a prisoner’s dilemma: a review of the case of the burning facility in Tejer’an, Mexico
The Mexican government has so far identified at least eight people who could be held responsible, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said Wednesday.
Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra, head of the Specialized Prosecutor for Human Rights of the Attorney General of Mexico, said none of the public employees or the private security officers made any attempt to open a locked door and allow the migrants to escape the burning facility.
No charges were announced, but authorities said they would seek at least four arrest warrants later in the day, including one for a migrant who was part of what they described as a small group that started the fire. A camera inside the cell where the fire occurred was damaged by a migrant.
Two people dressed as guards run into the camera frame, and at least one migrant is seen by the gate on the other side in the video confirmed by the government. But the guards don’t appear to make any effort to open the cell doors and instead hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the structure within seconds.
The Mexican foreign ministry has communicated with several countries to identify the victims and assist the families of those affected.
Asked about a discrepancy in the number of reported victims, Rodriguez said that the current death toll would change because several deceased and injured migrants haven’t yet been identified.
The level of funding allocated to Mexico’s migration institution was deemed adequate by the officials following a review, despite questions about the incident raised at the news conference.
Investigation of the X-ray Fire in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico at the time of the first Mexican Pandemic-Era Health Restrictions
It is one of a number of Mexican border cities which have had to deal with migrants sent back from the US by a pandemic-era public health restriction that is set to expire in early May.
The process of presenting their case at a port of entry in Mexico can take weeks or months. Many people are sleeping in the streets, begging for change.
Mexican officials appeared to place blame for the deaths in the fire late Monday largely on private, subcontracted security guards at the detention center in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The video showed guards hurrying away without trying to free prisoners.
Several hundred of the migrants crossed the shallow Rio Grande from Mexico toward the U.S. and approached a gate in the border fence that separates El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. There were armed agents at the entrance.
The federal Public Safety Secretary, Rosa Icela, is one of the five people under investigation. Rodríguez said.
The investigation has centered on the fact that guards appeared to make no effort to open cell doors for the detained men — almost all from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador — before smoke filled the room in a matter of seconds.
Adding to anger over the deaths was pent-up frustration of migrants who have spent weeks trying to make appointments on a U.S. cellphone app to file asylum claims. Rumors spread among the migrants that they might be let in into the U.S.
Coln said that he heard on social media that acquaintances had gotten through.
A group of about 50 migrants initially approached a Border Patrol vehicle and personnel and sat or kneeled on the ground. About 25 of them were then led in single file through the gate into the U.S. and onto a white school-bus style vehicle that drove away.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that both immigration agents and security guards from a private contractor were present at the facility.
The Firefighter who killed 39 Migrants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, declared a Crime against Law and Order
It was unclear if the two guards actually had the keys, but authorities suggested Wednesday that they should have gotten them or broken the lock — a highly difficult task, given the quick spread of smoke.
Most of the people who are hospitalized in critical or serious condition are believed to be from smoke inhalation.
The migrants were stuck because the US immigration policy does not allow them to cross the border to file asylum claims. But they were rounded up because Ciudad Juarez residents were tired of migrants blocking border crossings or asking for money.
Rodrguez said that there were several complaints from neighbors about the group of migrants acting aggressively, asking people in the street for money.
After that, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuellar started campaigning to inform migrants there was room in shelters and no need to beg in the streets. He urged residents not to give money to them, and said authorities removed migrants intersections where it was dangerous to beg and residents saw the activity as a nuisance.
On Wednesday, the mayor told the AP that he had not received any reports of migrant rights abuses. He insisted that his government shared no responsibility for what happened.
“It’s a terrible tragedy that pains all of us. He said authorities should take full responsibility for the fact that people didn’t open the doors for the migrants.
MEXICO CITY — A Mexican court issued arrest orders Thursday for six people in relation to the fire that killed 39 migrants at a detention facility this week in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, according to the federal prosecutor leading the investigation.
Sara Irene Herrerías said they include three officials from the National Immigration Institute, two private security guards contracted by the agency and the detained migrant accused of starting the fire. She said five of the six would be charged with homicide and causing injuries.
At least 39 migrants died after apparently starting a fire inside a holding cell at the facility Monday night. More than two dozen others were injured.
An immigration official’s reaction to the “fire” at a Mexican worker’s center in the wake of the February 26 fire: an immigration attorney general’s investigation
Rodrguez said that the private security firm was paid by the government to provide security at immigration facilities in more than 20 states. She said it would face a fine and revocation of its operating permit.
On Wednesday, a complaint filed with federal investigators from the federal Attorney General’s Office accused the state’s top immigration official of knowing about the fire but ordering that the migrants not be released.
Herrerías, the prosecutor, said Thursday that their investigation would include the entire chain of command for the immigration facility to determine what actions or omissions could be punishable.
Asked directly whether González had been called in to give a statement, Rodríguez said that prosecutors would not say anything which could jeopardize the case, but that the investigation would go where it needed to.
Campbell claimed that one of his clients told him that a migrant asked for a cigarette and a lighter and that five of them started to protest.
That was the moment, Campbell said, that immigration agents at the facility notified González of the fire and he “told them not to do anything and under no circumstances should they let them leave.”
Why the mattresses caught fire is one of the questions that will be part of the investigation. “We will look at why these mattresses ignited, when that shouldn’t have happened.”
Rodríguez refused to answer questions about the cell being locked, the location of the keys and where the lighter came, saying those issues were all part of the investigation.
The circumstances of the fire anger families in the region who are still waiting for confirmation that their loved ones are alive or dead.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167393055/mexico-migrant-center-fire-arrests
The Mexican President had threatened to abstain from impunity in a “violating era” of impunity, and a warning to the attorney general
The Mexico President said Thursday that impunity would not be allowed, and that he had told the attorney general to not give anyone special consideration.
