Migrant deaths in Mexico put spotlight on US policy that shifted immigration enforcement south

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Raquel Aldana, University of California, Davis

(THE CONVERSATION) The fire-related deaths of at least 39 migrants in a detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, just across the U.S. border with Mexico, will likely be found to have had several contributing factors.

There was the immediate cause of the blaze, the mattresses apparently set alight by desperate men in the center to protest their imminent deportation. And then there is the apparent role of guards, seen on video walking away from the blaze.

But as an expert on immigration policy, I believe there is another part of the tragedy that can’t be overlooked: the decadeslong immigration enforcement policies of the U.S. and Mexican governments that have seen the number of people kept in such facilities skyrocket.

In the aftermath of the fire, Felipe González Morales, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights of migrants, commented on Twitter that the “extensive...