By Blanca Carmona / La Verdad Juárez
Translation: El Paso Matters
Ciudad Juárez– A federal judge has suspended criminal charges against Francisco Garduño Yáñez, Mexico’s top immigration official, in relation to the 2023 fire at the migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez that killed 40 migrants and injured 27 others.
After a seven-hour hearing Friday, Judge Víctor Manlio Hernández Calderón suspended Garduño’s charges under the condition that he comply with several mandates within the next 18 months, including that he complete the government’s victim compensation plan, implement a plan to visit centers once every three months, take courses in human and civil rights – and issue a public apology to survivors and families of those who died.
The judge also approved that compensation to the victims be paid with funds from the public treasury, relieving Garduño from paying a portion from his own pocket – a request made by organizations representing survivors and families of those who died.
With this ruling, Garduño, commissioner of the National Migration Institute, was practically freed from the charges against him, which include failing to comply with his obligation to monitor, protect and provide security to the facilities and migrants under his charge and promoting crimes committed against migrants.
Garduño told the judge that he would immediately comply with the order.
At the end of the hearing, Garduño avoided answering questions from reporters outside the Federal Criminal Justice Center where the hearing was held.
The court ruling sparked displeasure among the lawyers of the Foundation for Justice, representatives of eight survivors and nine family groups of deceased victims, who said they will file an appeal.
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“This is a terrible precedent because it means that any public official who commits a crime of this degree, the state must pay (compensate) and then a judge says that since the state has already paid, nothing happens, (the official) does not have to make any reparation for the damage,” said Yesenia Valdez, coordinator of defense with the Foundation for Justice, an organization that represents 18 victims.
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The suspension of criminal proceedings is a tool provided for by law that allows criminal cases to be terminated without going to trial. It has the effect of an acquittal when the conditions imposed by the judge are met. In case of non-compliance with the conditions, the criminal process will resume.
Garduño was the top immigration official charged in the case of the March 27, 2023, fire. Another nine immigration officials and private security guards are charged in the case alongside two migrants who are alleged to have started the fire by lighting vinyl mats in protest of the poor conditions in the center.
An investigation by La Verdad, El Paso Matters and Lighthouse Reports published last March found how a number of safety failures and oversights at the detention center turned the incident so fatal – including that the center lacked a sprinkler system, fire extinguishers were missing or inoperable, and that federal and private guards alleged they could not find the key to a padlock on the cell door.
In all, about $170,000 was awarded to each of the families of 39 of the victims, with another family receiving about $197,000 because of a violation of due process of the victim. Of the 40 victim families, 35 have received compensation; while five other families have not accepted compensation. Those who were injured in the fire but survived also were allocated compensations of varying amounts depending on their injuries, although several have not been located. Two of the people listed as victims are the migrants accused of setting the fire. Their compensation checks are in the hands of authorities for the time being.
Garduño in 2023 paid about $22,700 for damage to the building out of pocket – the difference between the government’s estimated damage and what the insurance company covered, his attorneys confirmed during the hearing.
That Garduño paid for building damage but could be absolved of paying damages to the survivors and the victim families upset families and their attorneys, who argued he should be held personally responsible for some of the compensation.
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