The situation of migrants in Mexico is ‘a ticking time bomb,’ says expert

First modification: 03/30/2023 – 14:01

According to the authorities, migrants set fire to mattresses in protest of their possible deportation last Monday. Several had been detained on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, on the US border, where they were asking for money, selling items or cleaning cars. The “homicide” investigation opened on Wednesday by the Mexican authorities should shed light on the circumstances of this tragedy.

“Fed up” with “ill-treatment”

“None of the public servants or the private security police took any action to open the door for the migrants who were already inside with the fire,” Sara Irene Herrerías, head of the Human Rights Specialized Prosecutor’s Office, said at a press conference. .

A 32-second video from CCTV footage shows the start of the fire on Monday night. Behind the bars, through the smoke, a man kicks against a closed door while another appears to be placing a mattress on the floor. In the foreground, three officers walk away with their backs to the people behind bars, without helping them.

“This happened as result of a policy of control and of criminalization to the migration that he Government of Mexico ha strengthened in the last years. He made of that the people they decided manifest of some or other manner, well is a question of satiety about the bad conditions in the that are are seasons migratory“, explains to RFI Melissa Vertiz, of the Working Group on Migration Policy.

“Are spaces in where the conditions HE they can equalize to conditions of torture, of bad deals and that unfortunately this Government and also the governments previous, No they have accomplished establish guarantee of No repetition. No HE they have modified the laws. We have insisted in that, by example, HE has to of eliminate the deprivation of freedom of the people by the simple condition migratory and further good HE must of promote measures of regularization migratory“, details Vertiz.

Eight people have been identified as allegedly responsible for this omission: two federal agents and a state agent from the INM, and five members of a private security company, Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said at the same conference. In addition, a migrant “is pointed out by the same people” with whom he was detained for starting the fire, the prosecutor explained. This Wednesday, the judges were asked for four arrest warrants, added the prosecutor, and indicated that the act is being investigated as “homicide.” The suspects “are already giving their statements,” she said.

“Militarization of migration controls”

The authorities have not yet provided details on the nationality of the victims. Guatemala said Tuesday that 28 of its nationals had been killed. El Salvador said four people had been seriously injured and called for those responsible for the tragedy to be brought to justice.

“In this six-year term there has been a militarization of immigration controls, giving the National Guard the powers to carry out immigration control actions, when in reality they should be exclusive to the National Institute of Migration. It has also been militarized in the sense that they have before the delegations of the National Migration Institute at the state level, profiles of military persons”, continues Melissa Vertiz.

“In fact, it’s a time bomb. Obviously you have people who you don’t give an answer to when they apply for asylum, people who are sent back under title 42, well obviously this becomes an express pot. And when the government the only response it gives is to have them either in a migratory station or practically in a street situation, without coordination to give a response from a human security perspective, because these are the consequences,” he concludes.

As a result of the tragedy, some 1,000 migrants tried to cross the US-Mexico border on foot on Wednesday, US border authorities said, adding that they would be deported. A rumor circulated among the migrants that the United States was willing to receive some of them for humanitarian reasons.

Since 2014, some 7,661 migrants have died or disappeared en route to US soil, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

And with AFP