The safety video that went viral on Tuesday confirmed guards abandoning a government-run detention heart on the U.S.-Mexico border, as flames swept via a big, locked cell full of 68 males. Thirty-nine of them died within the catastrophe in Ciudad Juárez, throughout from El Paso.

The video has induced an uproar in Mexico, with the opposition, Catholic Church leaders, human rights teams and even authorities allies demanding an finish to such abuses. Pope Francis known as Wednesday for prayers for the victims. The migrants’ residence international locations have insisted on thorough investigations.

But the scandal has additionally put a highlight on selections by the Trump and Biden administrations to more and more strain Mexico to cease the rising variety of U.S.-bound migrants.

“This can be a enormous tragedy and a reminder of the failure of each U.S. and Mexican migration coverage,” stated Savitri Arvey, a senior coverage adviser on the Ladies’s Refugee Fee in Washington.

Mexico apprehended almost 450,000 migrants in 2022, greater than triple the quantity in 2018 and an indication of the growing circulate of individuals from international locations beset by entrenched poverty and violence. Refined smuggling networks and the connectivity supplied by smartphones are additionally spurring the exodus.

Mexico has one of many largest immigration detention programs on this planet, with 6,000 employees and round 66 facilities for these apprehended, in keeping with Tyler Mattiace, a Latin America investigator for Human Rights Watch. However he famous that lots of these are non permanent holding amenities or retrofitted places of work or buildings with little infrastructure — and overcrowding is a typical downside. A residents’ council that advises the federal government’s Nationwide Migration Institute issued an announcement Tuesday describing “deplorable” situations on the amenities.

“They function like prisons,” the assertion charged — although unlawful migration is an administrative offense in Mexico, not a criminal offense.

The power in Ciudad Juárez is amongst them. The boys’s ward was a big cell with white bars and a locked door, in keeping with immigrant activists who’ve visited the middle. Detainees there slept on mattresses on the ground, lined by foil emergency blankets, stated Alejandra Corona, coordinator of companies for the Jesuit Refugee Service within the metropolis. “At instances there isn’t sufficient meals,” she stated. “And the standard isn’t the very best.”

However the largest downside Monday evening seemed to be the guards’ negligence. The video confirmed a number of strolling previous the cell and the people locked inside at the same time as flames unfold. Immigration officers stated 15 feminine prisoners in a separate a part of the ability had been freed.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had initially blamed the tragedy on the migrants, saying they set their mattresses ablaze to protest their impending deportation. Such demonstrations have beforehand occurred in different migration detention amenities.

Following the video’s launch, López Obrador promised an intensive investigation. “There might be no try to cover the information,” he informed reporters.

Mexico has performed a rising function in internet hosting and intercepting migrants since early in Donald Trump’s presidency. But its finances for immigration enforcement and a rising variety of asylum candidates has lagged.

In 2018, Trump negotiated an accord known as the Migration Safety Protocols, by which Mexico agreed to host U.S. asylum candidates from a number of international locations. The next 12 months, Mexico deployed its new nationwide guard to detain migrants after Trump threatened to impose tariffs to pressure the nation to curb the swelling variety of migrants. Then, in 2020, because the coronavirus pandemic took off, Trump started utilizing a well being legislation known as Title 42 to shortly expel migrants earlier than they might request asylum.

Biden has sought to finish these applications however has been blocked by the courts. Extra just lately, confronted with historic numbers of migrants and asylum seekers reaching the border, he additionally urged Mexico to accentuate enforcement.

Rising crowds of migrants are caught in border cities like Ciudad Juárez, the place shelters have multiplied — and quickly stuffed. Alarmed by what number of foreigners are sleeping within the streets, and begging for meals and cash, metropolis officers have labored with immigration authorities to spherical up migrants.

“Right here, the issue is, there’s an settlement between Mexico and the U.S., by which the Mexican authorities has accepted individuals being returned via Title 42,” stated Blanca Navarrete, head of the Basic Human Rights in Motion group in Juarez. “However the identical authorities doesn’t present funds to provide humanitarian assist to the individuals who had been expelled.”

Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report.