In San Cristóbal de Las Casas, the protesters demanded the dismissal of the head of the INM, Francisco Garduño , and a change in the Mexican government ‘s immigration policy to prevent more deaths of migrants, as occurred with the incident on Monday.

“For years we have been demanding justice for different human rights violations. Today in particular we are demanding justice for the fire and the action of omission that the National Institute of Migration had where it left fellow migrants,” said David Morales, representative of the Monitoring Collective Southern border.

The migrants put up signs with phrases such as “Total closure of immigration detention spaces,” “No person is illegal,” and “Enough of the increase in massacres and disappearances.”

“For years we have also said, especially since the pandemic, that these places do not have prevention mechanisms or security strategies and that is precisely what happened,” Morales lamented.

The protesters questioned the speech of the Government of Mexico after the incident, for which they have blamed the migrants and have affirmed that it was in a “shelter”.

Maricela Sandybell Reyes , from the group Voces Mesoamericanas Acción con Pueblos Migrantes , denounced that “Mexico’s immigration policies are immigration policies of death, they are policies of detention and deportation of migrants.”

The collectives noted that the presence of migrants in Mexico has increased in recent months after the United States announced the immediate deportation of migrants in Cuba , Haiti , Nicaragua , and Venezuela under Title 42.

Immigration centers are ‘torture’
Also in Tapachula , on the border of Mexico with Guatemala , 10 organizations demonstrated and denounced that the INM migration centers are “torture.”

In that demonstration, migrants escaped from a bus that would take them to the Siglo XXI immigration center.

Arturo Antonio, a migrant from Honduras who managed to escape from the bus, assured that he was previously in Ciudad Juárez , at the temporary station where the 39 migrants died.

He asserted that there are no beds in that place, the bathrooms are unsanitary, and there is no water or food to stay in that place.

“We got off the truck because they were going to lock us up and deport us to Honduras, we are afraid of being locked up in the Siglo XXI immigration station, look what happened in Juárez,” he said.

Olman Adonai , another migrant from that country, also fled fearing confinement.

“This is not accommodation, the food is not good, it is more than a prison there, that is why we no longer wanted to enter here,” he said.

Enrique Vidal , from the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center , indicated that the immigration stations in Mexico should disappear because it has been verified that there are cells and mistreatment.

“These facilities are illegal as long as they do not recognize that a deprivation of liberty must be subject to international standards,” he added.