Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican authorities mentioned Wednesday that eight staff or officers are being investigated for doable misconduct at a migrant detention middle the place a fireplace killed 39 detained males.

Anger and frustration within the northern border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez boiled over as tons of of migrants walked to a U.S. border gate hoping to make a mass crossing.

Mexican officers appeared to position blame for the deaths within the fireplace late Monday largely on personal, subcontracted safety guards on the detention middle in Ciudad Juarez, throughout the border from El Paso, Texas. Video confirmed guards hurrying away from the smoky fireplace apparently with out making an attempt to free detainees.

No costs have been introduced, however authorities mentioned they’d search a minimum of 4 arrest warrants later within the day, together with one for a migrant who was a part of what they described as a small group that began the hearth. They mentioned a migrant additionally broken a safety digital camera contained in the cell the place the hearth occurred.

5 of these underneath investigation for doable misconduct are personal safety guards, two are federal immigration brokers and one is a Chihuahua state officer, federal Public Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez. mentioned

The investigation has centered on the truth that guards appeared to make no effort to open cell doorways for the detained males — nearly all from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador — earlier than smoke crammed the room in a matter of seconds.

The deaths induced frustration, and will have performed a task in a mass march late Wednesday afternoon by tons of of migrants, who started strolling towards a U.S. border crossing within the perception that American authorities would allow them to via.

Including to anger over the deaths was pent-up frustration of migrants who’ve spent weeks making an attempt to make appointments on a U.S. cellphone app to file asylum claims. Rumors unfold among the many migrants that they may be let in into the U.S.

Jorman Colón, a 30-year-old Venezuelan migrant, walked hand-in-hand along with his 9-year-old daughter, saying he had heard on social media that acquaintances had gotten via.

“We need to flip ourselves in,” Colón mentioned, referring to step one within the asylum course of.

A number of hundred of the migrants crossed the shallow Rio Grande from Mexico towards the U.S. and approached a gate within the border fence that separates El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Armed brokers stood guard on the U.S. gate entrance.

Venezuelan migrant Victoria Molina, 24, complained that “the app by no means provides us an (appointment) date.”

A bunch of about 50 migrants initially approached a Border Patrol automobile and personnel and sat or kneeled on the bottom. About 25 of them have been then led in single file via the gate into the U.S. and onto a white school-bus model automobile that drove away.

U.S. officers mentioned Wednesday evening {that a} whole of about 1,000 migrants had crossed the river and have been being processed in an orderly method. It was unclear if they’d be allowed to stay or be bussed to a proper border crossing for expulsion.

Smoke started billowing out of the migrant detention middle late Monday after a gaggle of detained migrants set fireplace to foam mattresses, to protest what they thought have been plans to maneuver or deport them.

Immigration authorities mentioned they launched 15 girls when the hearth broke out, however haven’t defined why no males have been let loose.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned Wednesday that each immigration brokers and safety guards from a non-public contractor have been current on the facility.

Additionally Wednesday, Pope Francis supplied prayers on the finish of his basic viewers for individuals who died within the “tragic fireplace.”

Leaked surveillance video reveals migrants, reportedly fearing they have been about to be moved, inserting foam mattresses towards the bars of their detention cell and setting them on fireplace.

Within the video, later confirmed by the federal government, two individuals dressed as guards rush into the digital camera body, and a minimum of one migrant seems by the metallic gate on the opposite facet. However the guards don’t seem to make any effort to open the cell doorways and as an alternative hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the construction inside seconds.

It was unclear if the 2 guards really had the keys, however authorities prompt Wednesday that they need to have gotten them or damaged the lock — a extremely troublesome process, given the short unfold of smoke.

U.S. authorities have supplied to assist deal with a few of the practically 30 people who find themselves hospitalized in essential or critical situation, most apparently from smoke inhalation.

The migrants have been caught in Ciudad Jaurez as a result of U.S. immigration insurance policies don’t permit them to cross the border to file asylum claims. However they have been rounded up as a result of Ciudad Juarez residents have been uninterested in migrants blocking border crossings or asking for cash.

“There have been a number of complaints from neighbors a couple of group of migrants, we don’t know if it was this group or one other, that was allegedly performing aggressively, asking individuals on the street for cash, demanding it,” mentioned Rodríguez.

The excessive degree of frustration in Ciudad Juarez was already evident earlier this month when tons of of principally Venezuelan migrants tried to pressure their means throughout one of many worldwide bridges to El Paso, performing on false rumors that america would permit them to enter the nation. U.S. authorities blocked their makes an attempt.

After that, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuellar began campaigning to tell migrants there was room in shelters and no have to beg within the streets. He urged residents to not give cash to them, and mentioned authorities eliminated migrants intersections the place it was harmful to beg and residents noticed the exercise as a nuisance.

On Wednesday, the mayor instructed AP his workplace had not acquired any report of rights abuses of migrants in detention amenities. He insisted that his authorities shared no duty for what occurred.

“It’s a horrible tragedy that pains all of us. We’re grieving,” he mentioned, including that authorities ought to “come down with the total weight of the legislation on these accountable – the folks that for example, didn’t open the doorways for the migrants.”

Related Press videojournalist Alicia Fernández and writers Maria Verza Guadalupe Peñuelas in Ciudad Juarez, Mark Stevenson in Mexico Metropolis, Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala Metropolis and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

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