Mexico immigration agency leader, others to be charged in deadly migrant fire

Mexico’s top immigration official will face criminal charges in a fire that killed 40 migrants in Ciudad Juarez last month, with federal prosecutors saying they could not have prevented the disaster despite early indications of trouble at the agency’s detention center.

The decision to file charges against Francisco Garduno, head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, was announced late Tuesday by the federal Attorney General’s Office.

It follows repeated calls from Mexico, and from several Central American countries, not to end the case against five low-level officials, guards and Venezuelan migrants who have faced murder charges in the case.

Anger initially focused on two guards who were seen fleeing the fire on March 27, without unlocking the cell door to allow the migrants to escape. But President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday that he did not have the keys.

The Attorney General’s Office said several other officials from Garduno’s agency will also face charges for dereliction of duty, the statement said, but prosecutors did not say what the specific charges were or identify the officials.

Prosecutors say the case shows a “pattern of irresponsibility.”

The press office of the immigration agency headed by Garduno did not respond to messages and calls seeking comment.

The president appeared to defend the guards

Prosecutors say that after a fire at another detention center in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco killed one person and injured 14 in 2020, the immigration agency knew there were problems to fix, but allegedly failed to act.

There have long been complaints about corruption and poor conditions in Mexico’s migrant detention facilities, but they have never been seriously addressed.

Lopez Obrador’s comments about the guards in last month’s fire in the border city of Ciudad Juarez came on the same day that the bodies of 17 Guatemalan migrants and six Hondurans who died in the fire were flown back to their country.

It is unclear what effect Lopez Obrador’s comments will have on the trial of the guards, who were previously detained over the fire.

“The door is closed, because the person who has the key is not there,” Lopez Obrador said.

Video from security cameras inside the facility showed guards walking around when a fire started in late March inside a cell holding migrants.

The guards were seen rushing away as smoke filled the facility, and no attempt was made to free the migrants.

A Venezuelan migrant allegedly set fire to a foam mattress in a detention center to protest what he thought was a plan to move or deport migrants.

Guatemalan migrants return

In Guatemala City, relatives of the victims gathered at an air force base with flowers and photos of the deceased to mark their return.

“My child, my love,” a woman’s voice was heard calling out, amid the cries of those who had come as the coffin was unloaded and placed in a row, and relatives were allowed to approach.

LISTENING | What the deadly fire in Ciudad Juarez says about the migrant crisis:

Mexican military planes brought the bodies of six migrants to Honduras and 17 to Guatemala. Authorities said 19 of the 40 dead were from Guatemala, but two bodies were still in the process of confirming their identities.

An additional 11 Guatemalans were injured in the fire.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Bucaro accompanied the bodies, which will be brought overland to their hometowns in nine different provinces.

Several bodies of Salvadoran migrants returned to El Salvador last week. So far, 31 bodies have been sent back to their countries.