Mexico City, Mar 28 (EFE).- The fatal fire in an immigration center in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the United States, which caused the death of 40 migrants so far “is a consequence of the restrictive and cruel immigration policies that they share the governments of Mexico and the United States, the organization Amnesty International (AI) said on Tuesday.
“These devastating facts reveal a truly inhuman migration control system. How is it possible that the Mexican authorities have locked up human beings with no chance of escaping the fire?” Erika Guevara-Rosas, AI Americas director, said in a statement.
In addition, he considered, as “extremely insensitive and offensive” that both President López Obrador in his morning press conference, and the National Institute of Migration in an official statement, “have insisted on using euphemisms to downplay the gravity of the events that occurred and blame to the migrants of the facts”.
“The immigration stations are not ‘shelters,’ but detention centers, and people are not ‘housed’ there, but deprived of their liberty,” Guevara Rosas explained.
In the statement, AI pointed out that the countries of the region, led by the United States, “have established shared migration policies that are increasingly inhumane”, making access to the right to request asylum almost impossible and forcing people to seek routes more dangerous and that put them in a greater situation of vulnerability.
He recalled that in the strategy that seeks to stop migration in collaboration with the United States and Canada, the Mexican authorities “have established powers for the National Guard in immigration matters and have militarized the borders.”
In addition, they have used immigration detention systematically. “Only in 2022, the immigration authorities detained at least 318,660 people in immigration stations and expelled more than 106,000, among whom there are still children and adolescents.
The organization pointed out that according to a statement from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR), among the people killed and injured there were 28 Guatemalans, 13 Hondurans, 12 Venezuelans, 12 Salvadorans, one Ecuadorian and one Colombian.
This Tuesday afternoon, the Mexican government raised to 40 the number of migrants killed by a fire in a center of the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the United States, and placed the number of injured at 28.
“Until 2:00 p.m. local time, there is a record of 40 deceased foreign migrants and 28 injured; In addition, assistance is provided to 15 foreign women of legal age who were evicted from the Provisional Stay when the fire started in the accommodation area of the immigration headquarters,” the National Institute of Migration (INM) of Mexico added in a statement.
The INM said that it indicates that it collaborates with the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) and with the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) with “testimonies and evidence to clarify the truth of what happened,” on Monday night in Ciudad Juárez , Chihuahua.
