Mexico immigration chief charged with deadly detention center fire that killed 40 migrants after agency ignored reports of overcrowding – but allowed to keep job
- Francisco Garduño, the director of the National Migration Institute of Mexico, is on trial on March 27 for the deaths of 40 migrants in a detention center.
- The migrants died after one or two of them set fire to mattresses in a prison cell
- Garduño is allowed to remain at large during the proceedings and will continue to fulfill his role as bureau chief
The head of Mexico’s immigration service has been charged over the fire that killed 40 migrants at a detention center in the northern border town of Ciudad Juárez last month.
Judge Víctor Hernández found there was enough evidence for Francisco Garduño, director of the National Migration Institute, to stand trial at a hearing held Sunday.
Hernández agreed with Garduño’s assessment by the Attorney General’s Office that while it was impossible for him to present in several places at once, it was his rightful duty as director of the Office to ensure the livelihoods of all migrants who were held to protect. the storage facility.
In addition, he agreed that the director of the National Migration Institute ignored reports of overcrowding, lack of water and sanitation in the detention center.
A guard sits as migrants gather at a cell door at a migrant detention center in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, where 40 detainees died in a fire on March 27
The director of the National Immigration Institute, Francisco Garduño, will face trial over the March 27 fire that killed 40 migrants at a detention center in Ciudad Juárez, a judge announced on Sunday. However, Garduño will continue to perform his duties as head of the bureau and will be allowed to remain at large during the proceedings
Garduño is allowed to remain at large during the proceedings and is allowed to carry out his role as director of the agency after Hernández rejected a request from prosecutors to remove him.
His lawyer, Rodolfo Pérez, told The Associated Press that they will try to reach an agreement on reparations to the victims in order to avoid a lawsuit.
“I’ll keep working…until otherwise,” Garduño told a crowd of reporters after leaving the Chihuahua Federal Criminal Justice Center.
The March 27 fire was reportedly started by one or more of the migrants to protest the inhumane conditions at the Ciudad Juárez detention center.
Surveillance camera footage showed migrants placing mattresses behind the bars of the prison cell just before smoke engulfed the area. None of the guards present tried to open the cell doors for the detainees.
The migrants placed mattresses behind the cell bars to block the guards’ view just before at least one or two of the detainees set fire to the mattresses
A guard at the Immigration Detention Center looks into the prison cell just before the migrant detention center set fire to mattresses in an incident that killed 40 migrants and injured two dozen on March 27
Female inmates in a dormitory react to the smell of smoke in Ciudad Juárez prison. center where 40 male migrants were murdered on 27 March
At least 68 migrants, most of them from Central America, were in jail at the time of the fire and two dozen were being treated for injuries.
Despite the allegations, Garduño continued to receive the support of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The president declined to comment on him during his daily press conference on Monday, comparing reports of the allegations to sensationalist journalism.
“I no longer want yellow journalism to be used as news in the Mexican press,” López Obrador said. “If I tell you about Garduño, it’ll be tomorrow’s cover, ‘Garduño in the headlines’. Yes, we will do a review and we will inform you.’
