AFP news agency reported on the 31st that the dark cooperation between the United States and Mexico, which tried to curb illegal immigration to the United States, was once again revealed through the fire disaster at the Mexican Immigration Agency (INM) that caused about 60 casualties.
At least 39 people died, and 28 others were injured in a fire that broke out on the 27th at the immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, northern Mexico, adjacent to El Paso, USA.
At the time, the camp housed 66 immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, and El Salvador.
The number of immigrants trapped here is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the number Mexico has detained and deported.
Mexico’s immigration agency detained at least 281,149 overcrowded migrants and deported 98,299 migrants, including children, in 2022 alone, Amnesty International (AI) said in its annual report published this week.
It is pointed out that such a stern response is due to Mexico’s active cooperation with the United States’ policy on deporting illegal immigrants.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump introduced a policy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The policy allowed illegal immigrants to be immediately deported without a refugee screening process.
AFP reported that many migrants who failed to cross the border were deported mainly overland through Mexico.
Between January and November of last year, the number of irregular immigrants registered in Mexico totaled more than 388,000, an increase of more than 30% compared to 2021.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international human rights organization, criticized the Immigration Agency fire case as revealing how fatal the US outsourcing of migrant control issues to Mexico had been.
Immigration expert Eunice Rendon also pointed out that Mexico is doing the “dirty work” for the United States.
At the same time, it was evaluated that this fire disaster was the result of the side effects of the United States’ immigration policy.