Thirty-Nine Migrants Die in Fire At Mexican Detention Center as Border Crisis Worsens

Updated March 28, 2023

• Migrants afraid of deportation set mattresses on fire at an immigration center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, starting a blaze that left 39 dead and 29 injured.
• More than 30 migrant shelters and advocacy organizations published an open letter on March 9 that drew attention to the growing stigmatization of migrants and asylum seekers in the border city.
• There were 68 men from Central and South America being held in the facility.
• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the fire was started after the migrants learned of their upcoming deportation:

“They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune."

Updated March 13, 2023

Border crisis continues

• Hundreds of migrants rushed the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez border crossing after a rumor circulated that migrants would be allowed into the U.S. the day after two boats carrying migrants capsized off the coast of San Diego, killing eight. 
• The border rush and the smuggling boat reflect the difficulty of being granted asylum to the U.S. and the increasing desperation of migrants who have often traveled thousands of miles to reach the border.
• In January, the U.S. released a scheduling app for prospective asylum seekers, and it is now mandatory for individuals to pre-book an appointment with border officials. Asylum seekers without an appointment are turned away, but the app has been beset by technical glitches and has been accused of having a coded bias against darker-skinned applicants.

Rumors at the border

• The rush began at noon on Sunday when a group of predominantly Venezuelan asylum seekers gathered en masse on the Paso Del Norte bridge connecting Ciudad Juarez to El Paso.
• The rumor that prompted the rush purported that refugees and asylum seekers would be allowed entry to the U.S. due to a "day of the migrant" exception, with express asylum being offered.
• Videos circulating on social media show women and children heading towards the border chanting "to the USA."
• Border security personnel in riot gear erected barbed wire fencing and dispersed tear gas throughout the crowd.
• The crowd had mostly dispersed by 5:30 p.m., but the crossing remained closed to vehicle traffic until 6:30 p.m.

Eight migrants confirmed dead after boats capsize

• Two smuggling boats carrying migrants capsized off the coast of San Diego, with eight on board confirmed dead and seven currently missing. There were an estimated twenty-three people on board the two boats.
• The boats capsized fifteen miles North of San Diego, near Black’s Beach, and are believed to be panga boats, small open boats with outboard engines that are frequently used by human smugglers. The boats likely capsized due to heavy fog.
• The victims were found in the water and along the sand by U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel after a woman on board one of the boats notified 911 that her boat had capsized.
• Hundreds of maritime smuggling operations take place annually as an alternative to crossing the dangerous land border. Authorities called it one of the deadliest human smuggling operations in U.S. history.
• The foreign consulate said it believes seven of the eight confirmed dead are of Mexican origin due to identification cards found on or near their bodies.

Updated March 7, 2023

• In the Mexican state of Veracruz, 103 unaccompanied migrant children were found with 212 unrelated adults in an abandoned truck. It is the largest discovery of migrant children found in recent history.
• The National Migration Institute (INM) said the children were predominantly from Guatemala, while the adults came from various countries in Central and South America.
• They were all wearing color-coded bracelets that identified them as the clients of people smugglers.
• The trailer was found without a driver and was customized with an extra floor to fit more people inside. Truck transport is extremely dangerous as migrants risk dying from heat exhaustion and suffocation.
• The children discovered on Monday will be placed in Veracruz's family services system, while the adults will be processed to find out their legal status in Mexico.
• Earlier this year, 57 migrant children from Guatemala were found unaccompanied in a truck at a checkpoint near the U.S-Mexico border.

What's the story?

• On Sunday, seventeen asylum seekers died in a bus crash as they traveled through the state of Puebla, Mexico, en route to the U.S. The crash comes days before the start of the public comment period on Biden's strict new asylum rule targeting the U.S.-Mexico border.
• The proposed rule would make asylum seekers ineligible for U.S. protection if they "circumvent" legal pathways.

The Biden administration's approach

• A proposal released on Tuesday by the Biden administration will ban migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border from claiming asylum in a move to deter people from coming to the border without receiving prior authorization.
• The proposal, issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice, will make it mandatory for asylum seekers to use existing legal pathways to enter the U.S., although the policy will not apply to unaccompanied minors.
• Immigration rights activists and fellow Democrats have criticized Biden’s border policies as being akin to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
• Eleanor Acer, refugee protection director at Human Rights First, said the restrictions on asylum are "right out of the Trump playbook."
• Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said:

"We successfully sued to block the Trump transit ban and will sue again if the Biden administration goes through with its plan." 

• The proposed asylum rules come as the Covid border restrictions, known as Title 42, are set to end on May 11. Title 42 allowed U.S. authorities to expel migrants, regardless of nation of origin, to Mexico, without giving them a chance to claim asylum.
• The proposal is subject to a 30-day public comment period before being reviewed for final publication. Submit a formal comment here.

Recent tragedies

• There were forty-five asylum seekers on the bus that crashed last Sunday. They were from Venezuela, Colombia, and Central America.
• The crash comes a week after a bus carrying sixty-six migrants plunged off a cliff in Panama, killing thirty-nine people. The crash occurred after the bus successfully traversed the Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous regions in the world.
• An unknown number of people have died attempting to cross the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia en route to the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the Panamanian government, roughly 250,000 migrants crossed the Darién Gap in 2022 alone, up from 133,000 in 2021.

Crisis at the border

• In May of 2022, U.S. law enforcement recorded 239,416 encounters at the Mexico border, the highest monthly number ever recorded.
• The International Organization for Migration estimates that there have been over 4,000 deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border since 2014, with countless migrants missing.
• In June 2022, 53 migrants were found asphyxiated near San Antonio, Texas, in the deadliest smuggling incident in U.S. history. 
• There is also a growing rate of unaccompanied minors reaching the border. In the first half of the 2022 fiscal year, 100,336 unaccompanied minors were detained by U.S. border authorities.
• A lack of economic opportunities, environmental disasters, and increasing rates of gang violence and retribution have led to the steadily increasing number of migrants and asylum seekers at the border.
• Eduardo "Eddie'' Canales, the founder of the NGO South Texas Human Rights Center, said:

"South Texas is a burial ground for many migrants."

Do you support the Biden administration's new proposal to address the migrant crisis? Leave a comment.

—Emma Kansiz

(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)