(El Paso, Texas) At least 40 migrants died and 29 were gravely injured last night due to a fire at the Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Immigration Institute) migration center in Ciudad Juárez.
We are horrified by the loss of dozens of lives last night in our border community. Each person has a name and is a child to someone, a sibling to someone, or a friend to someone. The Biden administration’s increasingly aggressive posture on migration enforcement and deterrence first-strategies at the border have pressured Mexican authorities to stem migration in an already overcrowded and under-resourced system resulting in fatal tragedies such as the one we witnessed last night. In the months following the Biden administration’s expansion of Title 42, we have witnessed increased enforcement actions by Mexican authorities and the detention of persons in the facility where the fire broke out. Those who blame the victims of the fire obscure the fact these deaths are an indictment of the policies and structures implemented at large by both governments.
Through our Border Refugee Assistance Fund, we will continue our essential humanitarian support to migrant persons returned to Ciudad Juárez, who bear the weight of our unjust immigration policies, and we will continue to stand with vulnerable people on the move in advocating for a world where the cost of enforcement is no longer death.
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The Hope Border Institute (HOPE) brings the perspective of Catholic social teaching to bear on the realities unique to our US-Mexico border region. Through a robust program of research and policy work, leadership development and action, we work to build justice and deepen solidarity across the borderlands. Learn more at www.hopeborder.org.
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