MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico’s top immigration official will face criminal charges in a fire that killed 40 migrants in Ciudad Juarez last month, with federal prosecutors saying he was remiss in not preventing the disaster despite earlier indications of problems at his agency’s detention centers.
The decision to file charges against the head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute Francisco Garduño was announced late on Tuesday by the federal Attorney General’s Office.
It followed repeated calls from within Mexico, and from some Central American nations, not to stop the case at the five low-level officials, guards and a Venezuelan migrant already facing homicide charges in the case.
Anger initially focussed on two guards who were seen fleeing the March 27 fire, without unlocking the cell door to allow the migrants to escape.
But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said earlier on Tuesday that they didn’t have the keys.
The Attorney General’s Office said several other officers of Garduño’s agency will also face charges for failing to carry out their duties, the statement said, but prosecutors did not explain what specific charges or identify the officials. Prosecutors said the case showed a “pattern of irresponsibility”.
The press office of the immigration agency that Garduño heads did respond to messages requesting comment.
Prosecutors said that after a fire at another detention center in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco killed one person and injured 14 in 2020, the immigration agency knew there were problems which needed to be corrected but alleged they failed to act.
There have long been complaints about corruption and bad conditions at Mexico’s migrant detention facilities, but they have never been seriously addressed.
