CIUDAD JUáREZ, Mexico — Katiuska Márquez said she was begging for money on the streets of Ciudad Juárez on Monday afternoon when Mexican immigration officers took her and her family to a migrant detention facility just across the border from El Salvador. Paso, Texas.
Hours later, the 23-year-old Venezuelan was released with her husband and two young children, but she said authorities would not release her brother, Orlando Maldonado.
One of the last things her brother said to her, she said, was “don’t let me die.”
That night, a fire broke out inside the facility, killing at least 38 people and seriously injuring 28 others. The Mexican government says 68 men from Central and South America are being held at the facility. (The government reported that 40 people were killed, but it later revised the number.)
Mexican immigration authorities asked Ms. Márquez to check local hospitals for her 30-year-old brother.
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but the Mexican president said it started when detainees began protesting inside the detention facility – this is just the latest example of unrest. is raging in Mexican border cities dealing with the recent influx of migrants to the United States. month.
President Biden has responded to an unusually high influx of migrants at the southwestern border by trying to discourage people from crossing the border illegally, relying more heavily on Mexico to take in migrants who are being intercepted by border officials. U.S. border deported and migrants had to wait in northern Mexico to apply for immigration. opportunity to enter the United States and claim asylum.
These measures have reduced the number of people flocking to the United States, but they also adding to the incessant accumulation of migrants in Mexicowhere shelters are overcrowded and where authorities have a track record of human rights checks.
“Along with the Mexican government, the United States is directly responsible for what happens to migrants in Mexico,” said Rachel Schmidtke, a senior advocate for Latin America at the International Organization for Refugees. , because they force people to stay in Mexico.
The Biden administration argues that it is trying to prevent people from making dangerous journeys to illegally cross the border into the United States. The administration has also opened legal avenues for migrants from several countries applying for humanitarian parole to enter the United States, hoping that a more orderly process would be safer.
Senior administration officials told The Times that since January 5, when the US government launched a new program that allows migrants to apply for a humanitarian amnesty for two years, the rate of border crossings has increased. The illegality of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans has decreased by 97%. Venezuelans. Officials said they have also seen a reduction in at least one migrant camp on the Mexican side of the border.
An increasing number of migrants have reached northern Mexico in recent weeks, many hoping to reach the United States as pandemic-era rules allowing US authorities to quickly deport migrants expire on Nov. May.
The detention center fire comes after weeks of heightened tension in Ciudad Juárez, which has been strained by a constant influx of people.
“Our patience is running out,” Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, the mayor of Ciudad Juárez, said at a press conference this month, vowing the city would take a tougher approach towards migrants. “could affect the economy of the city and the thousands of Juárez and El Paso residents.”
The number of migrants in the city has risen to 12,000, far exceeding the city’s meager shelter capacity, according to estimates by the United Nations Office for International Migration. Migrants now sleep in churches, hotels and sometimes on the streets.
To survive, many of them had to sell candy, clean windshields and beg for money. Migration officials have invited numerous agents from other parts of the country to help manage the influx of immigrants.
Human rights groups, in a letter signed this month, denounced what they say is abuse by migration officers and what they call “criminalization of migrants”.
The letter said that migrants’ documents were destroyed during a raid on a local hotel on March 8, apparently a joint operation by police officers, security forces Mexican state and military.
“With an excessive presence, a clear threatening message is sent to the population,” the letter read.
In the midst of tensions, migrants have also taken greater risks to reach the United States.
On March 12, hundreds of people – including women and children – flocked to the border and gathered at the bridge connecting Ciudad Juárez with El Paso, local media reported. The migrants begged to cross, but were refused by law enforcement.
in one recorded video of La Verdad, a local media outlet, a woman with a small baby on her shoulder shouted: “We just want to get through! Please help us! Enough, we’re tired of being here in Juárez! Migration does not leave us alone! It takes away what little we have! Help us!”
The next day, the mayor announced the city would take a “stronger stance” on migrants.
Some news outlets say that the Mexican government has round up migrants in the city begging or selling goods on the street a few hours before Monday’s disaster, and there were stress between detainees and facility staff.
The National Migration Instituteresponsible for the detention center, declined to comment on the reports.
The Mexican government said it was conducting an investigation into the tragedy and working with consulates in the migrants’ countries of origin to identify them.
Mr. López Obrador said the migrants killed in the fire mainly came from Central America and Venezuela. The country’s foreign ministry said some of the victims were also from Guatemala.
Television footage showed a crowd of police cars, ambulances and other emergency vehicles in the area where the fire broke out on Monday night. It appears that several bodies wrapped in large sheets of foil can be seen in the facility’s parking lot, and people outside cling to the perimeter fence as emergency responders care for them. victims.
Some of the victims’ bodies were covered in soot.
Jessika Barrios arrived at the site of the tragedy on Tuesday afternoon, where a memorial to the victims was being erected with candles and signs complaining about the conditions migrants face on the streets. Ciudad Juarez.
Ms. Barrios, a native of the Venezuelan city of Mérida and a former carer for the elderly, said she lives in an abandoned construction site with her two daughters Jhoannys, 8, and Andrea, 5.
Ms. Barrios said she was looking for a Venezuelan friend, José Rafael Mendoza, who went missing Monday after going to work cleaning the windshields of cars stuck in traffic in the city.
“I don’t know if he was among the victims,” said Barrios, who traveled with her daughters for six months after leaving Ecuador, where they had previously fled from Venezuela. said. “But I fear the worst.”
The temper flared on Tuesday afternoon among migrants who gathered in front of the facility.
“This tragedy is a crime against humanity,” said Juan Pavón, 55, a former pub owner from San Cristóbal, Venezuela, who now lives with his two daughters on the streets of Ciudad Juárez. “We are pawns in the game of giants. No one cares what happens to us.”
“The place where these people die has no dignity at all,” he added. “It’s a prison.”
Rocio Gallegos And Simon Romero reporting from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; Natalie Kitroeff And Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City. Maria Abi-Habib, Elda Cantu, Jose Bautista, Jody Garcia, Mike Ives And Euan ward contribution report.
