Image taken from a video showing ambulances and rescue teams staffers outside an immigration center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Tuesday, March 28, 2023. At least three dozen migrants have died in a fire at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border, according to a newspaper report. Images from the scene showed rows of bodies lying under shimmery silver sheets outside the facility in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue could also be seen.
Associated Press
A fire broke out in a Mexican immigration detention center near the border, killing multiple people Monday night.
According to The Associated Press, it is “one of the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration lockup in the country.”
At least 39 people died and 29 people were injured from the fire in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just south of El Paso, Texas. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire.
The people killed in the fire were men from Central and South America, AP reported.
Per The Washington Post, some of the 68 residents who were living in the center are likely from Venezuela.
But the National Migration Institute has started “communicating ‘with consular authorities from different countries’ in order to identify the dead,” The New York Times reported.
“With deep sadness and sorrow, we learned about the fire that happened inside the INM of Ciudad Juarez,” Mexican lawmaker Andrea Chávez said in a statement on Facebook. “We will wait for the official information and, from this moment, we convey our condolences to the families of the migrants.”
In February, President Joe Biden’s administration announced a rule that requires migrants to apply for asylum in the countries they travel through to get to the U.S. before attempting to get asylum in the U.S., per CNN.
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