Migrants set deadly fire over deportation fears, Mexico’s president says
By
March 28, 2023
Migrants fearing deportation set fire to mattresses during a protest at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico, killing at least 40 people, the Mexican president said Tuesday.
The deadly blaze broke out at the National Institute of Migration in Ciudad Juárez on Monday night, where 68 men from Central and South America were being held, the agency said.
The facility is across from El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez is a major crossing point for migrants.
Some migrants ignited stacked mattresses at the entrance of the center after learning that they would be sent back to their countries of origin, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Tuesday morning.
“This had to do with a protest that they started,” he explained.
“We assume that they found out that they were going to be deported, mobilized and as a protest at the door of the shelter they put up mattresses and set them on fire and they did not imagine that this was going to cause this terrible disgrace.”
Twenty-nine people were injured and are in “delicate-serious” condition, authorities said.
The dead and injured are from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office said. Guatemalans are the largest contingent.
Mexican authorities in Ciudad Juárez have become increasingly hostile toward asylum seekers, which have been packing local shelters, reported El Diario de Juarez.
Residents have reported the migrants, who often linger in the streets, as a nuisance, the paper said.
Survivors of Monday night’s fire were left to deal with heartache, and possible deportation to their countries of origin.
The fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. Monday after migrants set mattresses on fire, Mexican officials said.
On Tuesday, Venezuelan migrants gathered at the facility’s doors demanding information about relatives.
Katiuska Márquez asked about her half-brother, Orlando Maldonado, who had been traveling with her.
“We want to know if he is alive or if he’s dead,” said Márquez, who had her two children, ages 2 and 4, with her.
She wondered how all the guards who were inside made it out alive and only the migrants died.
“How could they not get them out?”
Authorities in the Mexican border city of Juarez have become increasingly hostile toward migrants, as some have been milling around in public places for months.
Márquez and Maldonado, who were waiting in Juarez for an appointment from US authorities to request asylum, were detained Monday with the kids and about 20 others.
“Immigration grabbed me by the jacket and put me in the truck with my brother and other families,” she said.
Three hours later, the women and children were released.
The fatal inferno comes after hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants tried to force their way across one of the international bridges to El Paso earlier this month from Ciudad Juarez, spurred by rumors the US would allow them into the country.
