A court in Mexico on Thursday issued arrest warrants for six people in relation to the fire that killed 39 migrants at a detention center earlier this week in the border city of Juarez Cityaccording to the federal prosecutor leading the investigation.
Sara Irene Herrerías said that among the six there are three officials of the National Institute of Migration, two private security guards hired by the agency and the person who allegedly started the fire. He specified that five of them had already been arrested and that they would face charges of manslaughter and battery.
At least 39 migrants died after they apparently started a fire inside a holding cell Monday night. Nearly thirty other immigrants suffered injuries. Most of the victims were from Guatemala, Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador.
The federal secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, said that 27 migrants are still hospitalized, all of them in serious or critical conditions. One has been discharged, she clarified. Coincidentally, the migrant who is blamed for starting the fire only had minor injuries and has already left the hospital, presumably in the custody of the authorities.
Rodríguez also referred to the private security company involved, which he identified as Grupo de Seguridad Privada CAMSA. He explained that he had a contract with the State to take care of security in migrant centers in 23 Mexican states. He anticipated that his operating permit would be revoked and that he would face a fine.
There should have been 48 agents in charge of security tasks in the migrant centers in the state of Chihuahua, where the fire broke out, Rodríguez said.
A video from inside the facility showed that when the fire started, the guards left the room without apparently making any attempt to remove the migrants from the cell, although there is still no data to clarify whether or not they had keys to the cells.
According to a complaint filed Wednesday by a lawyer representing people involved in the events, the head of the immigration agency in the state where the fire occurred was reportedly informed by telephone of the start of the fire and ordered not to release the detainees.
The aforementioned official is retired Rear Admiral Salvador González Guerrero, delegate of the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Chihuahua, where is Juarez City border with El Paso, Texas. The INM did not immediately respond to a request for comment or an interview with González Guerrero.
On Wednesday both the prosecutor Herrerías and the head of federal Security indicated that until then they had no testimony that mentioned that alleged call and the prosecutor added that the delegate of the INM in Chihuahua He had not yet made a statement, although a total of eight allegedly involved in the events had.
On Thursday, Herrería only added that the entire “chain of responsibilities” within the migration agency is being analyzed to determine which acts or omissions are reprehensible and stressed that the custody, security and surveillance of migration centers is the responsibility of Migration.
Asked directly about whether the delegate of Migration in ChihorAhua had been called to render a version before the Prosecutor’s Office, Rodríguez only said that the prosecutors cannot provide information that could harm the investigation of the case, but that the investigations would go as far as they have to go.
The lawyer Jorge Vázquez Campbell presented the complaint to which The Associated Press had access and in which it is stated that the aforementioned official allegedly “gave the order by telephone so that the migrants who were staying inside the place where the attack began fire, the door was not opened for them for any reason”.
Herrerías declared on Wednesday that the Prosecutor’s Office still did not have evidence of that call. On Thursday, according to Rodríguez, they were also investigating why the mattresses catch fire easily. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he stated.
What Rodríguez did not want to give details or answer about is whether the cell is closed, where the keys were to open it or where the migrants got a lighter. He said that all these aspects were part of the investigation.
According to the lawyer Campbell, his clients told him that a migrant asked for a cigarette and a lighter and, right after, “they began to make their protest.”
He added that there were five people who were protesting and that they had been arrested that same day. “The officers made fun of them, they got irritated and two of them (migrants) set a mattress on fire.”
It was at that moment when, according to the lawyer, the immigration agents notified González Guerrero “and the man said that nothing should be done and that they would not let them leave for any reason.”
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador insisted on Thursday that there will be no impunity. “I spoke with the prosecutor to ask him that there is no consideration other than doing justice, that they act professionally, with absolute freedom.”
It is not the first time that the lawyer Vázquez Campbell has filed complaints against the immigration authorities of Chihuahua. Last year he filed three for mistreatment of migrants and abuse of authority that also pointed to the migration delegate in the state.
The official National Human Rights Commission issued a recommendation to the immigration agency in February for the illegal detention in the facilities of Juarez City of three Turkish citizens who were in the country legally. The migrants also denounced that officials asked them for money to return their documents.
These types of complaints, as well as allegations of corruption against immigration agents, are recurring in Mexico but often go unpunished. Of the more than 5,000 internal investigations opened by the INM since 2019 only five had ended up in the Prosecutor’s Office by mid-2022, according to information obtained thanks to transparency laws.
The way in which the more than 60 migrants were trapped has so enraged national and international human rights organizations that they have multiplied criticism of Mexico’s current immigration policy, its increasing militarization and lack of accountability when abuses are reported.
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