At least 37 people have been killed after an overnight fire broke out at an immigration detention center in a Mexican town on the US border, the AP news agency quoted an official as saying.
At least 29 others were injured in the fire that broke out at the facility run by the National Migration Institute (INM) in Ciudad Juarez, the official told the news agency.
Mexican media reported that the cause of the fire was not immediately known, as rescue teams, firefighters and local police were responding to the scene.
The country’s prosecutor general has ordered an investigation, Andrea Chavez, the federal deputy for Ciudad Juarez, said in a statement on Facebook.
A rescuer said there were about 70 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, at the site at the time of the fire.
Vinagli, a Venezuelan woman, stood outside the immigration center to inquire about her 27-year-old husband, who had been detained there.
“He was taken away in an ambulance,” she told AFP, adding that her husband had documents allowing him to stay in Mexico. “They (immigration officers) don’t tell you anything. A family member can die and they don’t tell you he’s dead.”
Ciudad Juarez, which neighbors El Paso, Texas, is one of the border cities where undocumented immigrants seeking asylum in the US are stuck.
According to a recent report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), since 2014, around 7,661 migrants died or went missing on their way to the US, while 988 died in accidents or while traveling in difficult conditions.
The Biden administration has tried to stem the flow of migrants and asylum seekers into the US by imposing draconian, draconian restrictions.
Under these new rules, migrants will no longer be eligible for asylum if they simply enter the United States at the border. Instead, they must first apply for asylum in one of the countries they pass through, or they can do so online using a US government app.
Each month, approximately 200,000 people attempt to cross the Mexican–US border, mostly from Central and South America, requesting asylum.
The Biden administration has faced fierce criticism from immigrant advocates and progressive Democratic leaders, who have urged the president to do more to uphold his government’s responsibility to refugees and asylum seekers.
