The Facts
On Wednesday, Mexican authorities announced a probe into the deadly blaze at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez earlier this week, as public servants and private security guards allegedly took no action to help detainees escape.
This comes after a surveillance video — authenticated by Interior Minister Adán Augusto López — emerged, showing migrants trapped in locked cells while two guards appeared to make no attempt to release them as smoke filled the area.
The Spin
Narrative A
This appalling tragedy in Ciudad Juárez is just the latest in Mexico's long record of human rights abuses against migrants, who are commonly treated as criminals under the country's immigration policy. As there is plenty of evidence that Mexican officials have fallen short of their duty of care toward detainees by purposefully not helping them, this incident is an evident homicide case.
Narrative B
Though the blame game surrounding this fire has put irregular migration and the behavior of both migrants and Mexican officials in the spotlight, it still misses an important factor contributing to this tragedy. While not causing these deaths alone, American border policies have aggravated long-standing problems by restraining legal entry and failing to discourage migrants from attempting to enter the US.
