39 migrants die in Mexican immigration center
March 28, 2023
At least 39 migrants died in a fire at a Mexican immigration center last night. The blaze was apparently started by migrants who set their mattresses on fire in protest after learning they would be deported.
"They didn't think that would cause this terrible tragedy," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told a news conference, noting that most migrants at the facility were from Central America and Venezuela. Twenty-nine people in the facility were injured in the blaze and taken to four hospitals in the area.
However, local media reports that the 68 men detained in the facility had been locked up, and had set the fire after several hours without access to drinking water. (Aristegui Noticias)
The national immigration agency said Tuesday that it “energetically rejects the actions that led to this tragedy” without any further explanation of what those actions might have been, reports the Associated Press.
The blaze in Ciudad Juárez is one of the deadliest incidents to afflict migrants in Mexico in the past few decades, and comes as the U.S. and Mexico are battling to cope with record levels of border crossings at their shared frontier, reports Reuters.
Tensions between authorities and migrants has been running high in recent weeks in Ciudad Juárez, where shelters are full of migrants seeking to cross into the U.S. or who have requested asylum there and are waiting out the process, reports the Associated Press.
More than 30 migrant shelters and other advocacy organizations published an open letter March 9 that complained of a criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers in the city. It accused authorities of abuse and using excessive force in rounding up migrants, complaining that municipal police were questioning people in the street about their immigration status without cause.
AMLO has lashed out against the U.S. frequently in recent months, but U.S. lawmakers “don’t believe his willingness to help the United States with immigration enforcement is at risk,” reports the Washington Post. “Mexico can’t handle a huge increase in migrants, they say, and knows border chaos is bad for trade.”
Mexico-U.S.
The U.S. Biden administration plans to send Mexico an "act now or else" message in coming weeks in an attempt to break a stalemate in an energy trade dispute, reports Reuters.
AMLO said a U.S. claim that parts of Mexico are controlled by drug cartels is “false.” (Al Jazeera)
Mexico
Mexico’s Supreme Court accepted a challenge from the country’s Electoral Institute against the electoral reform passed by lawmakers allied with AMLO, temporarily suspending its application while it assesses its constitutionality. (Bloomberg)
Judge Javier Laynez Potisek’s argument for granting the measure is that there is a possible violation of the political-electoral rights of citizens, given changes in the operation of the electoral body, reports Animal Político. (See Feb. 23’s briefs.)
Guatemala
Guatemala's presidential race kicked off yesterday, in the midst of intense criticism of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s criteria in permitting candidacies. The TSE allowed aspirants implicated in corruption to run, but blocked Indigenous activist Thelma Cabrera, because her running mate, former anticorruption prosecutor Jordan Rodas, faces a criminal complaint from Guatemala’s attorney general. (Reuters)
Peru
Peru’s Congress will evaluate, on Thursday, whether to admit an impeachment motion against President Dina Boluarte. The request is based on her alleged “permanent moral incapacity” to rule the country, specifically related to the dozens of deaths in anti-government protests since she assumed office in December. (Bloomberg, EFE)
Venezuela
Venezuela’s attorney general said that 21 people, including senior officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s administration and business leaders, have been arrested in connection with a corruption scheme involving international oil sales, reports the Associated Press. Venezuelan oil minister Tareck El Aissami resigned last week following a spate of arrests related to oil corruption. (See last Tuesday’s briefs.)
Paraguay
Paraguay’s attorney general launched a criminal investigation into U.S. allegations that former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes and the current vice president, Hugo Velázquez, were involved in corruption and had ties to a terrorist group, reports the Associated Press.
Argentina
Argentina’s former President Mauricio Macri said he will not run for president in this year’s elections. The two front-runners for his “Juntos por el Cambio” coalition’s nomination — Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich — applauded Macri's decision not to run. (Reuters)
Regional Relations
Argentine President Alberto Fernández is in the U.S., and will meet with President Joe Biden tomorrow. (Perfíl)
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he would like to visit Haiti, citing the impact of “Colombian mercenaries” who participated in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, “unleashing a crisis even worse than the one they were already going through.” (Bloomberg)
Taiwan and Honduras formally broke ties over the weekend, and Honduras established diplomatic relations with China on Sunday. Honduras’s decision, which fulfills a campaign promise made by Castro in 2021, came after weeks of diplomatic back-and-forth over the country’s mounting debt problems, reports the Associated Press.
Brazil
Preliminary court hearings of three of the alleged murderers of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira had to be suspended because of poor internet and logistical problems at the high-security prisons where the defendants are being held. (Guardian)
Ecuador
At least seven people were killed in a landslide in central Ecuador. (Associated Press)
A group of more than 100 current and former workers in Ecuador are seeking legal compensation from Furukawa, a Japanese company, that allegedly violated their human rights and kept them in slavery conditions. Workers say they earned less than minimum wage and were denied basic benefits and labour protections, reports Al Jazeera.