Suspendes criminal proceedings against IMP FIRE IN MIGRATORY STATION

When the term imposed by the judge concludes, it must be reviewed if Garduño met those conditions. If the judge considers it, the case will be closed and the head of Migration will be acquitted.

However, organizations representing 18 of the victims and their families considered that this judicial resolution marks a precedent of impunity and sends a message that serious crimes can be committed against vulnerable persons without justice.

Therefore, the defense of the victims asked President Claudia Sheinbaum not allowing “impunity machinery to continue feeding in her government.”

The fire at the Ciudad Juárez Migration Detention Center occurred in 2023 and the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened a criminal investigation. The authority determined that elements were found for Garduño to be judged as probable responsible for omissions, due to the lack of security of the migrants held and the conditions in which they were: without access to drinking water, food and in a station without outflows of emergency or civil protection protocols.

So, on April 30, 2023, Garduño was linked to the process for the crime of illicit exercise of public service, but did not dictate preventive detention. The judge gave four months for complementary investigation.

Since then, organizations in favor of the victims have denounced that the Migration Commissioner has sought to stop the criminal process against him. First he promoted an “alternate solution”, in which he promised to pay the difference in the value of the material damage of the property, established between the expert of the FGR and the insurance company, in exchange for stopping the investigation against him.

Then he requested suspensions to the process without the presentation of a damage repair plan in favor of the families of the 40 deceased migrants and the 27 survivors.

At the last hearing, Garduño’s lawyer held before the judge that the families of 35 of the 40 fatalities had already received financial support as part of the repair of the damage.

“The organizations that we have assumed the legal representation of survivors and families of deceased people have called the different authorities not to allow the impunity that Francisco Garduño and the INM enjoy before the serious violations of rights that have resulted in deaths inside The migratory stations, ”the Foundation for Justice in an August 2024 statement demanded.

Despite the criminal process against him, Garduño was not separated from his position as head of the INM. It even remains in the post despite the fact that Sheinbaum announced that Sergio Salomón, former governor of Puebla, would be the new migration commissioner. However, he justified that the change to specify the transition between the two administrations of the Institute is not completed.