The deaths of 39 detained migrants in a fire in Mexico on Monday are a reminder of the “dirty work” the country does for the US to stem migrant flows, experts said.
Many thousands of US-bound migrants are stranded in Mexico, struggling to survive in crime-ridden border towns without jobs or resources.
Shelters are overflowing, and many migrants live on the street, at the risk of tensions with local populations such as in Ciudad Juarez, the border city where the fire broke out in an immigration detention center on Monday.
Photo: AFP
All of which illustrates that the tragedy is the result of “the pressure cooker of US policies,” said Eunice Rendon, executive director of the Agenda Migrante advocacy group.
Mexico registered more than 388,000 irregular migrants between January and November last year, more than one-third more than in the same period of 2021, US government data showed.
US authorities in November last year apprehended 206,239 migrants at the border, more than at any time in the past two decades, the Pew Research Center said.
About one-third of the deportations were fast-tracked under a controversial rule known as Title 42 implemented by then-US president Donald Trump in 2020, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, Mexican authorities “continued to collaborate with the USA in implementing US policies that undermine the right to asylum and the principle” of non-forced return of migrants to countries where they might be in danger, Amnesty International said in an annual report this week.
Mexican immigration agencies detained at least 281,149 people in “overcrowded” centers and deported at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children, the rights group said.
“People expelled to Mexico from the USA were subjected to multiple forms of violence, including kidnappings, sexual violence and robbery,” it added.
New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the incident in Ciudad Juarez demonstrated “the deadly consequences of the US outsourcing immigration deterrence to Mexico.”
Since 2019, the Mexican government has deployed more than 20,000 military personnel on its borders, under the threat of trade sanctions.
Mexico is “doing the dirty work” of the US, Rendon said.
However, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has attempted a “more humanist” policy toward migrants, such as granting asylum, she said.
Experts said the incident in Ciudad Juarez could be a turning point for Mexico to renegotiate the terms of immigration cooperation and demand more support from Washington.
Meanwhile, five people have been arrested regarding the fire.
The announcement came a day after the Mexican Attorney General’s office announced a homicide investigation into the incident, accusing the people in charge of the facility of doing nothing to evacuate the migrants.
They “have already been placed at the disposal of the judge,” said Sara Irene Herrerias, a Mexican prosecutor specializing in human rights.
The deceased were 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian, Mexican Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Rosa Icela Rodriguez said.
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