By Maria Verza -
The Associated Press
The Attorney General of Mexico accused this Tuesday the main person in charge of the country's immigration agency of illegal exercise of public service and omission in his obligations that led to the death of 40 migrants in the fire that occurred almost a month ago in the detention center of Juarez City.
Six other agents from the National Migration Institute (INM) are already on trial, including a senior official who is a retired sailor.
During the hearing to formulate charges, the Prosecutor's Office presented numerous documents that prove that the head of the INM, Francisco Garduño, had among his duties to safeguard and protect the migrants and the institute's facilities without prejudice to the fact that his subordinates also did so.
He also had to review the conditions of the immigration stations and close them if they did not guarantee the safety of the migrants.
After nearly six hours of hearing, the federal judge in charge of the case, Víctor Manilo Hernández, upheld his decision to keep the high-ranking Mexican government official free and dismissed the FGR's requests to remove him from his post and prohibit him from leaving the country.
Garduño's next hearing will be on Sunday at 11:00 in the morning, local time, when the judge must decide whether to link him to the process.
The head of the National Institute of Migration of Mexico, Francisco Garduño, speaks to the press upon arriving at the court in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Friday, April 21, 2023. Christian Chavez / AP
The prosecutor in the case alleged that she had video recordings in which the security guards
asked the Immigration agents for permission to allow the migrants to leave
after the fire and they were denied.
Likewise, it was pointed out that Garduño had a copy of letters warning of irregular acts and transactions within the facilities and in which some migrants denounced that they were charged $1,000 to get out of the immigration center.
Among the evidence, mention was made of the recordings made by the 16 video cameras of a monitoring center, which operate in the Mexican capital, from 8:-- in the morning of March 27 until midnight of that day.
Among those who presented themselves as Garduño's victims were the security guard who saved the migrant women (detained in a different area than the men), Angélica Hinojosa, and the coordinator of the private security company who was also present the night of the fire.
[“It is more risky for the children”: the migrant caravan continues northward]
Hours after the hearing, another judge must decide whether or not to prosecute the other executive involved, Antonio Molina, in charge of immigration verification processes, for the illegal exercise of public service.
Forty migrants, the majority from Central America and Venezuela, died of suffocation and almost thirty were injured in the fire on March 27 in the detention center in Ciudad Juárez, near the border with the United States.
A small group of foreigners set fire to a mattress in protest and in a matter of seconds the smoke spread through the bedroom where 68 men were locked up without any guard opening the cell to release them, according to what was verified by the security cameras.
Survivor accuses guards for fire in Ciudad Juárez: "they were left to die inside"
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Neither Garduño nor Molina have left office after the event and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintains his support for the head of the INM despite increasing criticism against him.
The agency's entrance to Mexico City was papered Monday with signs reading
"Your resignation is wanted"
and
"Mexico's immigration policy kills
," as a group of migrants marched south demanding justice and their countries of origin. of the victims insisted on their demand to reach those ultimately responsible for the event.
The highest-ranking official prosecuted so far has been the retired military man who was head of the INM in the state of Chihuahua, Rear Admiral Salvador González.
He is accused of unlawful exercise of public service, injury, and manslaughter by omission, and is in pretrial detention along with five other immigration agents, a private security guard, and the migrant who allegedly started the fire.
The judge considered that González was responsible for the damaged facilities, that he did not ensure that the fire regulations were complied with or that the migrants had decent conditions of stay.
[El Paso extends emergency due to the arrival of migrants before the end of Title 42]
He also said that the military endorsed that foreigners were locked up as if the center were a "preventive prison" and recalled that the Supreme Court considered it unconstitutional to detain migrants for more than 36 hours, a period that had been exceeded in many cases. .
The day before, however, the high court endorsed that the National Guard had immigration functions despite criticism of the growing militarization of immigration policy.
In previous hearings against other officials, evidence of other irregularities was presented, such as not having registered part of the detainees or that they smoked in the bedroom of the fire.
Relatives of an immigration agent linked to the fire in Ciudad Juárez march for their freedom
April 17, 202300:48
Garduño's defense will try to show that it is not the directors who failed the day of the fire.
"The actions of both and of the entire Institute was appropriate," one of their lawyers, Rodolfo Pérez, told The Associated Press (AP), who transferred all responsibility to the private company that was in charge of the security of the installations.
The company had been contracted by the INM and, according to the investigation, it incurred numerous irregularities, generating costs double what the public sector pays for the same services.
Two of the guards present at the facility on the day of the fire are free.
The prosecution only reported an outstanding arrest warrant.
According to videos from security cameras that AP was able to review, members of that company were in charge of opening and closing the cell where the fire took place hours before the fire.
Then he lost track of the keys.
The women were released and put to safety.
The defense of the directors, who works for both Garduño and Molina, also assures that the prosecution has not carried out a serious investigation of the matter and that it "tried to manipulate" witnesses in order to prosecute some of the lower-ranking immigration agents. with which his accusation will end up falling, indicated Pérez.