In response to the deaths in the Ciudad Juárez immigration detention center, Mexico
On the night of Monday, March 27, we received news of a state crime through Mexican media and social networks. Dozens of migrants of various origins, all men, died in a fire at one of the "migrant detention centers" of Mexico's National Institute of Migration (INM), located in Ciudad Juárez, a few meters from the Rio Grande, on the border with the United States. Many other migrants were injured.
The first official reactions (from the hegemonic media, the State, including the Mexican president himself) revolved around revictimization, wanting to make the migrants responsible for their own deaths for having started a riot, an act of protest against confinement and the lack of drinking water.
Those of us who have been on the ground, monitoring migrants, civil society organizations, activists, and human rights defenders, know that the INM (National Migration Institute) facilities throughout Mexico are not “detention centers” or “migration stations,” much less “shelters” or “refuges.” They are spaces of deprivation of liberty. What was not so clear, but is now evident, is that the means of deterring migration involve torture, the teaching of cruelty, and state-sponsored murder. Indeed, these places of confinement are “torturous,” as human rights defenders in that country have been revealing for several years.
The National Migration Institute (INM) is a state apparatus coordinated by a former prison guard. Since taking office in early 2019, it has overseen the transformation of Mexican territory into a vast militarized border. For this reason, we join the collectives and organizations demanding the immediate removal of the INM Commissioner, Francisco Garduño Yáñez.
From the CLACSO Working Group on Migration and South-South Borders We join the organizations that have insisted on the use of alternatives to immigration detention in Mexico, and we demand the definitive closure of detention centers for migrants and refugees in Mexico. We have reached out to our fellow human rights defenders and, together with them, we demand that Mexican authorities be transparent and not interfere with the work of organizations that monitor and document cases, as well as those that provide direct assistance to affected families on both sides of the border.
#ItWasTheState
#TheyAreNotSheltersTheyArePrisons
#NotOneEuphemism+
#ProtectionNotDetention
#INAMI
#StateCrime
#Juarez City
March 30th 2023
CLACSO Working Group
Migration and South-South borders [+]
This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Workgroup and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
