Mexico’s top immigration official is now under investigation for a deadly fire in a migrant detention center last month. He and others face charges for failing to protect the migrants in their care.
Francisco Garduño, head of Mexico's National Immigration Institute, is among six public servants being investigated on charges related to the March 27 fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez. 40 migrants were killed and 25 others injured.
Federal prosecutors announced the investigation late Tuesday, saying that Garduño and others failed in their obligations to protect migrants, and that a pattern of irresponsibility within the immigration agency led to the tragedy.
Still, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a press conference Wednesday that he hasn’t decided whether to remove Garduño from his post.
A video of the fire showed guards inside the detention center leaving as the building filled with flames and smoke without opening the cell to allow migrants to escape. López Obrador said this week that the person with the keys to the cell had left the building prior to the fire.
Five people have already been arrested on homicide charges, including three low-level local immigration officials, a private security guard and the Venezuelan migrant who allegedly started the fire in protest after learning that he and others would be deported.
But authorities have been under pressure to investigate systemic issues within an agency long accused of corruption and other abuses.
#FGRInforma | Por los hechos ocurridos en el centro migratorio de #CdJuárez, Chih., se procedió penalmente contra Francisco “N” y Antonio “N”, directivos del @INAMI_mx, por incumplir obligaciones de vigilar, proteger y dar seguridad a personas e instalaciones a su cargo. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/NAV5g6Wj4u
— FGR México (@FGRMexico) April 12, 2023
