Mexico immigration agency head arraigned in deadly fire

Prosecutors introduced proof that Francisco Garduño, the pinnacle of the Mexican Immigration Institute, was liable for the security of nation’s immigration amenities and will have closed people who didn’t meet security necessities.

A choose denied prosecutors’ request that Garduño be faraway from his place and be barred from leaving the nation. His subsequent listening to was scheduled for Sunday.

A migrant allegedly began a fireplace contained in the Ciudad Juarez detention heart March 27. Safety cameras inside the power confirmed smoke rapidly filling the cell holding 68 male migrants, but no one with keys attempting to release them. The feeds for these cameras have been streamed to a monitoring heart in Mexico Metropolis.

Along with the 40 killed, greater than two dozen have been injured within the fireplace.

Garduño has not stepped down from his submit, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has voiced his support. 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 in opposition to 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 advised they might be freed in the event that they paid $1,000.

To this point, 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 expenses.

Prosecutors had beforehand stated that they recognized “a sample of irresponsibility and repeated omissions” within the immigration institute.

A choose 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 fireplace and calling for Mexico to shut its detention facilities.

Seven of the migrants and activists accompanying them on Tuesday sewed their lips shut in protest over the dearth of a authorities response to their request for dialogue.

The migrants walked to the city of Huixtla, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Tapachula the place they began their stroll Sunday.

They’re asking authorities to supply them with buses – there are numerous households with younger kids amongst them – or at the least with short-term paperwork that will give them free transit via the nation. To this point, authorities haven’t made any try and cease them.

Irineo Mujica, of the migrant advocacy group Individuals with out Borders, was a kind of who sewed his mouth shut. “It hurts a little bit, however the injustice towards the immigrant group hurts extra,” he stated. “None of these right here need to be loss of life quantity 41.”

It additionally performs out simply weeks earlier than the US authorities is anticipated 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.

AP author Edgar H. Clemente in Huixtla, Mexico contributed to this report.