Mexico immigration agency chief to be charged over deadly fire

Mexico has opened criminal proceedings against a top immigration official over a fire that killed 40 migrants in Ciudad Juarez last month, with prosecutors saying he was remiss in not preventing the disaster despite earlier indications of problems at the detention centres run by the agency.

The decision to file charges against Francisco Garduño, the head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, was announced on Tuesday by the federal attorney general’s office.

It followed repeated calls from within Mexico, and from some Central American nations, not to stop the case at the five low-level officials, guards and a Venezuelan migrant already facing homicide charges in the case.

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

‘Pattern of irresponsibility’

The attorney general’s office said several other officers of Garduño’s agency will also face charges for failing to carry out their duties, the statement said, but prosecutors did not explain specific charges or identify the officials.

Prosecutors said the case showed a “pattern of irresponsibility”.

The press office of the immigration agency that Garduño heads did not respond to requests for comments.

Prosecutors said after a fire at another detention centre in the gulf coast state of Tabasco that killed one person and injured 14 in 2020, the immigration agency knew there were problems, which needed to be corrected but alleged they failed to act.

There have long been complaints of corruption and bad conditions at Mexico’s migrant detention facilities, but they have never been seriously addressed.

López 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 Guatemala migrants and six Hondurans killed in the fire were flown back to their home countries.

It was unclear what effect López Obrador’s comments might have on the trial of the guards, who were arrested previously over the fire.

“The door was closed because the person who had the keys wasn’t there,” López Obrador said.

A video from a security camera inside the facility shows guards walking away when the fire started in late March inside the cell holding migrants.

The guards are seen hurrying away as smoke fills the facility, and they did not appear to make any effort to release the migrants.

Three Mexican immigration officials, a guard and a Venezuelan migrant are being held for investigation in connection with the fire. They face homicide charges.

The migrant allegedly set fire to foam mattresses at the detention centre to protest against what he apparently thought were plans to move or deport the migrants.

Bodies returned to victims in Honduras and Guatemala

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 son, my love,” a female voice could be heard calling out, amid sobs from those present as the coffins were unloaded and placed in a line, and relatives were allowed to approach them.

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

An additional 11 Guatemalans were injured in the fire.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Búcaro accompanied the bodies, which were to be taken overland to their hometowns in nine different provinces.

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