The migrant tragedy of Ciudad Juárez tells us about America

Ciudad Juárez is stuck in the imagination of half the world due to the spirals of violence suffered by its population.

The wars between cartels, the incessant femicides and the mafia ecosystem of trafficking have shaped a bleak and hopeless representation of the place.

Last Monday hopes were shattered again.

The death of 39 people in an immigration detention center, just a few kilometers from the border with the United States, is the symbol of the short circuit of an entire system.

Not only about what went wrong at the National Migration Institute (Inami) station, a dependency of the Mexican government, but also about the migratory phenomenon and the hardships that surround it: the endless drama of misery, persecution, uprooting and deprivation.

What we know is summarized, for the moment, in the 32 seconds of a video from one of the cameras in the center.

A cell full of migrants, a fire started by some inmates who were going to be deported, according to the authorities, some guards who don't even come close to the door despite the obvious desperation of the inmates and the smoke that devours the scene.

They died suffocated and charred.

The Prosecutor's investigation points to three officials, five security guards and a migrant.

Of course, it was a tragedy, but not just another misfortune.

In recent days, what has happened has told us about Mexico, its relationship with the United States and internal political tensions with the electoral campaign in the background, but also about Central America, Venezuela, the caravans and the dissonance between good intentions and reality.

Some of the migrants from Ciudad Juárez try to prevent the president @lopezobrador_ from leaving without attending to them after the brutal fire at the National Institute of Migration.

They ask for justice for the 39 deceased men who suffocated in a federal control cell pic.twitter.com/flvKutd6ev

— Bea Guillén Torres (@BeaGTorres) March 31, 2023

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised transparency and justice: "In no way are we going to hide anything."

On Friday afternoon, a group of migrants blocked his car during a visit to Ciudad Juárez and, so far, there has been no resignation.

But apart from the investigations that must determine the negligence and repair, at least through the truth, the relatives of the deceased and the dozens of injured, what happened has stirred the waters of the political arena from Washington to Caracas.

It is very sad what happened.

She left any consideration of a political nature for other times.

Each one must do what corresponds to him in this hour.

– Marcelo Ebrard C. (@m_ebrard) March 29, 2023

Two of the main officials of the Mexican Government, the Secretary of the Interior, the department in charge of the Migration Institute, and the Secretary of Foreign Relations, collided on account of the division of responsibilities.

Both aspire to succeed López Obrador and the first, Adán Augusto López, disassociated himself in an interview saying that the matter concerns Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.

He opted for a tweet in keeping with his position, more diplomatic, although suggesting that the dispute had not been settled: “He left any consideration of a political nature for other times.

Each one must do what corresponds to him in this hour”.

The most emotional words were heard in the Senate, where the opponent Emilio Álvarez Icaza, a veteran politician today not attached to any bench, demanded to live up to the tragedy.

The northern and southern borders of Mexico are a vital and bureaucratic abyss for tens of thousands of people, most of them waiting to define their situation and often after a long and dangerous journey through the jungle of Darien and Central America.

The goal is always to cross into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona or California and that is why the United States has always resorted to immigration policy to pressure or negotiate with the neighboring country.

Under Donald Trump, that trend degenerated into outright tariff blackmail.

It was the Republican who applied three years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, the so-called Title 42, a measure that facilitates hot returns today bogged down in the Supreme Court.

With these premises, the White House also had to rule on the death of migrants,

among whom were Central American citizens, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, and a Colombian, and denied all responsibility and offered to help investigate.

The Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó took political advantage of the tragedy to blame Nicolás Maduro.

Meanwhile, the relatives of the victims cry out for justice.

The main culprit is his ally @nicolasmaduro, who is responsible for the largest migration crisis in our hemisphere.

That is why we insist that the Venezuelan diaspora participate in the change and can return to rebuild their country.

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) March 28, 2023

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