Puerto Vallarta (PVDN) – At least 39 migrants, mostly from Central America and Venezuela, have died in a fire at the National Institute of Migration facilities in Ciudad Juárez, northeast Mexico. The migrants had been detained at the federal center after being arrested in the city on the same day. According to a source from the Chihuahua State Government, the migrants were apparently locked in rooms when the fire broke out. The INM has confirmed that there are at least another 29 people injured, who have been transferred to four hospitals in the region.
President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has attributed the incident to the fact that the migrants burned mats in protest when they thought they were going to be deported. This Monday, agents from the National Migration Institute detained over 70 people in Ciudad Juárez for alleged disturbances on public roads. Later they were placed in several cells on the left side of the building, which is run by the federal government.
According to the state government, the fire started in the male area and spread from there. All the fatalities are men: 37 died on the spot and another two lost their lives at the General Hospital. 15 women “without injuries” were also evacuated from the immigration building. The region is experiencing a record migratory flow, with 2.76 million people detained at the US-Mexico border in 2022.
Mexico has become a tense containment room, with thousands of migrants trying to cross north or seek asylum in Mexico. In December 2021, US border agents detained 251,487 people, more than 8,000 people a day. Of these detainees, according to data from the Customs and Border Control Office (CBP), 202,000 received the so-called Title 8, which allows them to be deported to their countries of origin, and the rest, almost 50,000, were sent to Mexico under the controversial Title 42. This old directive, which was revived by Donald Trump, allows foreign citizens, including asylum seekers, to be turned away for health reasons, in this case, the coronavirus pandemic.
In January 2022, Biden announced the implementation of a new program to grant 30,000 special permits each month to migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. However, these visas can only be applied for if the migrant is entering the country by air and has not attempted to cross the border illegally. Meanwhile, thousands of migrants have been stranded in Mexico without the possibility of accessing these permits and without receiving asylum in the country.
