Ciudad Juárez: the time bomb of the migration crisis

The dramatic images of relatives crying in front of the National Institute of Migration in Ciudad Juárez and of the bodies of migrants being dragged after the fire that claimed at least 40 lives on Tuesday filled the front pages of international media.

But the incident, caused by a protest by detainees waiting to be deported, is only the last link in a long chain of events that have been fueling tension over the migratory flow in the city of Chihuahua.

Since the US Supreme Court refused to repeal Title 42, the Trump-era measure that allows migrants to be expelled from the United States almost automatically, the masses of travelers stranded on the Mexican side of the border have swelled its ranks.

There were warning signs at the beginning of the year, when migrants denounced that the application launched by the US authorities to schedule the hearings of their cases had collapsed.

Another alert occurred at the beginning of March, when it was reported that migrants and immigration authorities had clashed in the city.

On March 13, hundreds of migrants forced their way onto the bridge between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso.

The fire at the migration center has uncovered a crisis that had been brewing for months and has revealed the ill-treatment migrants receive from the US and Mexican authorities, in a city that has become the epicenter of the international crisis.

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