CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — The head of Mexico’s immigration company was arraigned on prices Tuesday that he failed in his accountability to guard these in his custody when 40 migrants died in a hearth at a border detention heart final month.
Federal prosecutors mentioned that there are video recordings exhibiting that personal safety guards within the facility had requested immigration brokers permission to launch the migrants when the hearth began, however have been denied.
Prosecutors offered proof that Francisco Garduño, the top of the Mexican Immigration Institute, was chargeable for the protection of nation’s immigration services and will have closed people who didn’t meet security necessities.
A migrant allegedly began a hearth contained in the Ciudad Juarez detention heart March 27. Security cameras inside the power confirmed smoke shortly filling the cell holding 68 male migrants, however nobody with keys making an attempt to launch them.
In addition to the 40 killed, greater than two dozen have been injured within the hearth.
Garduño has not stepped down from his submit, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has voiced his help. The president appointed Garduño to run the company in 2019 whereas beneath strain from then-U.S. President Donald Trump to take a extra aggressive stance towards migrants crossing Mexico.
Garduño had beforehand been in command of Mexico’s prisons.
Prosecutors additionally spoke of nefarious dealings inside the power and a few migrants of their statements recounted how that they had been informed they’d be freed in the event that they paid $1,000.
So far, the best rating official headed to trial is the immigration company’s delegate within the state of Chihuahua, retired Navy Rear Adm. Salvador González. He was charged with murder and inflicting harm by omission amongst different prices.
Prosecutors had beforehand mentioned that they recognized “a pattern of irresponsibility and repeated omissions” within the immigration institute.
A decide was anticipated to determine later Tuesday whether or not considered one of Garduño’s lieutenants would go to trial.
The turmoil in Mexico’s immigration company comes at a time when a number of thousand migrants are strolling north from close to the Guatemalan border in protest of the lethal hearth and calling for Mexico to shut its detention facilities.
It additionally performs out simply weeks earlier than the United States authorities is predicted to finish the pandemic-era restrictions on asylum on the border and implement new measures that authorities hope will deter a brand new rush to the border.
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