“More than 1,000 migrants” attempted to cross the border between Mexico and the United States on Wednesday, US border guards said, adding that they are being deported.
The migrants crossed the border between the two countries on foot from Ciudad Juarez (northern Mexico), where 39 migrants died in a detention center fire Monday night, a team from AFP on the Mexican side found.
They then surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents, who would “deport” them, Anthony Good, a border patrol agent from El Paso, the sister city of Juarez, Texas, said on Twitter.
The United States Consulate in Ciudad Juarez has denied “rumours about the opening of the border after the Ciudad Juarez tragedy” which are “completely false”.
“The border is closed to irregular immigration!” hammered the US consulate on Twitter in a message in Spanish titled “Don’t be fooled”.
A rumor circulated among the migrants that the United States was ready to accept some of them on humanitarian grounds, noted the AFP correspondent in Ciudad Juarez.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, after contacts with “Mexican officials on the ground,” vaguely mentioned “medical assistance here in the United States” for the “wounded.”
In Mexico City, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez thanked the US authorities “who actually offered their support”.
“But whether it was adopted at this point is not entirely clear to me,” she added.
The minister revised the number of fires that broke out in the night from Monday to Tuesday upwards from 38 to 39 deaths.
27 injuries were also reported, including six in “extremely serious” condition.
The Mexican authorities announced on Wednesday the opening of a preliminary investigation into “murder”.
Eight suspects have been identified who are suspected of doing nothing to save the migrants, the human rights prosecutor said.
According to Mexican authorities, the migrants had set mattresses on fire because they feared deportation.