Migrant fire deaths result of US exporting ‘dirty work’
PRESSURE FROM THE NORTH: People expelled to Mexico from the US were subjected to violence, including kidnappings, sexual abuse and robbery, a rights group said
The deaths of 39 detained migrants in a fire in Mexico on Monday are a reminder of the “dirty work” the country does for the US to stem migrant flows, experts said.
Many thousands of US-bound migrants are stranded in Mexico, struggling to survive in crime-ridden border towns without jobs or resources.
Shelters are overflowing, and many migrants live on the street, at the risk of tensions with local populations such as in Ciudad Juarez, the border city where the fire broke out in an immigration detention center on Monday.
Flowers, photographs and other items on Thursday form a shrine outside an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where 39 migrants died in a fire on Monday.
Photo: AFP
All of which illustrates that the tragedy is the result of “the pressure cooker of US policies,” said Eunice Rendon, executive director of the Agenda Migrante advocacy group.
Mexico registered more than 388,000 irregular migrants between January and November last year, more than one-third more than in the same period of 2021, US government data showed.
US authorities in November last year apprehended 206,239 migrants at the border, more than at any time in the past two decades, the Pew Research Center said.
About one-third of the deportations were fast-tracked under a controversial rule known as Title 42 implemented by then-US president Donald Trump in 2020, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, Mexican authorities “continued to collaborate with the USA in implementing US policies that undermine the right to asylum and the principle” of non-forced return of migrants to countries where they might be in danger, Amnesty International said in an annual report this week.
Mexican immigration agencies detained at least 281,149 people in “overcrowded” centers and deported at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children, the rights group said.
“People expelled to Mexico from the USA were subjected to multiple forms of violence, including kidnappings, sexual violence and robbery,” it added.
New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the incident in Ciudad Juarez demonstrated “the deadly consequences of the US outsourcing immigration deterrence to Mexico.”
Since 2019, the Mexican government has deployed more than 20,000 military personnel on its borders, under the threat of trade sanctions.
Mexico is “doing the dirty work” of the US, Rendon said.
However, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has attempted a “more humanist” policy toward migrants, such as granting asylum, she said.
Experts said the incident in Ciudad Juarez could be a turning point for Mexico to renegotiate the terms of immigration cooperation and demand more support from Washington.
Meanwhile, five people have been arrested regarding the fire.
The announcement came a day after the Mexican Attorney General’s office announced a homicide investigation into the incident, accusing the people in charge of the facility of doing nothing to evacuate the migrants.
They “have already been placed at the disposal of the judge,” said Sara Irene Herrerias, a Mexican prosecutor specializing in human rights.
The deceased were 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian, Mexican Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Rosa Icela Rodriguez said.
Migrants treated 'like criminals' in Mexican immigration centers
Jose Osorio with Yussel Gonzalez in Mexico City
Fri, March 31, 2023
Luisa Jimenez thought she was visiting an office to regularize her stay in Mexico, but instead she found herself detained in an immigration center similar to the one where dozens of migrants perished in a fire.
"It's a holding cell, a detention center, like we're criminals," the Venezuelan migrant told AFP in Ciudad Juarez, where 39 people died and 27 were injured in the blaze that began on Monday.
Jimenez said the facility where she was held was in Tuxtla Gutierrez in the southern state of Chiapas.
She was taken there with the promise that she would be given a permit to remain in Mexico while seeking asylum in the United States.
Jimenez was actually notified that she had to leave the country, she added.
"It's a disgusting place," the 56-year-old woman said, describing conditions similar to those in Ciudad Juarez.
The tragedy there unfolded after a migrant lit a fire in apparent protest over deportations, according to authorities, who have accused immigration officials and guards of failing to even try to evacuate the migrants.
Arrest warrants have been issued against three officials, two private guards and a migrant who allegedly started the fire, as part of a homicide investigation.
Just a week earlier, Moises Chavez was held in the same cell, which he described as a smelly room where guards treat migrants with disdain.
"There are no fire extinguishers or smoke detectors, but there are cameras," the 41-year-old Nicaraguan told AFP.
It was the second time that Chavez had been taken to the National Institute of Migration facility, where the fire claimed the lives of 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian.
- Harsh conditions -
Video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving the 68 detainees locked inside as flames spread and smoke filled the room.
Ostensibly, such facilities are service and accommodation centers for foreigners who cannot prove their legal stay in Mexico.
In reality "you're treated like a prisoner," said Yusleidy Garcia from Venezuela, who was detained in Ciudad Juarez, where women and men are held in separate places.
"It was cold at night. They take away all your belongings. In the cell where I was there were 150 people" of various nationalities, she said.
Such conditions are in sharp contrast with rules issued by the government in 2012 requiring adequate food, hygiene protocols and protection of people and property in the event of riots.
Migrants are not supposed to remain in temporary-stay centers like the one that caught fire for more than seven days.
Some are transferred to other immigration facilities -- where the stay must not exceed 15 days -- to resolve their situation and receive legal assistance, and may be deported.
- 'Not shelters' -
Mexican immigration last year detained at least 281,149 people in "overcrowded" centers and deported at least 98,299 people, including unaccompanied children, Amnesty International said this week in an annual human rights report.
Following Monday's fire, the rights group called for "an end to the practices that have caused untold damage, including torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, to thousands of migrants who have passed through these centers."
"These facilities are not 'shelters,' but detention centers, and people are not 'housed' there, but deprived of their freedom," Amnesty said, alluding to statements by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The United Nations office in Mexico noted that the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration -- an intergovernmentally negotiated agreement -- outlaws arbitrary detentions and calls for legal detentions to be as short as possible.
Other international standards advocate alternatives to arrest, the UN said.
Jimenez's detention lasted for two days, following a long and dangerous journey during which she said she slept next to the bodies of migrants who died in the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama.
Outraged at being locked up when she was only trying to regularize her status, she recounted asking an immigration official: "Is it a crime to migrate?"
"She turned her back on me and left," Jimenez said.
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