Mexico Ends Case Against Ex-Migration Chief
A federal judge in Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, has closed the case against Mexico's former migration chief. Francisco Garduño had been charged over the March 2023 fire that killed 40 migrants locked in a detention cell near the US border.
Judge Víctor Manlio Hernández Calderón ruled late on Tuesday 13 October that Garduño had met the conditions of a 2025 arrangement that suspended his prosecution. The ruling spares him a trial, but survivors and victims' families say they will appeal, so the decision is not yet final.
How the Judge Closed the Case
The hearing at the Federal Criminal Justice Centre in Ciudad Juárez began at noon on Tuesday and lasted more than seven hours. Most victims and relatives are Guatemalan, so the court provided translation into K'iche', a Mayan language, the Mexico City daily La Jornada reported.
Mexico's former migration chief was formally charged in April 2023 with unlawful exercise of public office (ejercicio ilícito del servicio público). Prosecutors said he failed to watch over, protect and secure the people and facilities under his responsibility.
On Tuesday, the prosecutor from the Attorney General's Office (FGR), Mexico's federal prosecution service, told the court it had no objection to closing the case. Judge Hernández Calderón then dismissed the case, a step known in Mexican law as sobreseimiento.
The dismissal is not a verdict on the former migration chief's guilt, since the facts never went to trial, the Saltillo daily Vanguardia noted. Once final, however, it carries the legal effect of an acquittal, the news site Infobae and the local outlet La Verdad Juárez reported.
The Fire That Killed 40 Migrants
On the night of 27 March 2023, fire broke out in the men's wing of a Ciudad Juárez migration station on the US border. The station belonged to the National Migration Institute (INM), the federal agency that enforces Mexico's immigration rules and runs its detention centres.
Of the 67 men held there, 40 died and 27 were injured, according to Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), a state watchdog. Security footage showed staff outside the area where the men were locked in as smoke and flames spread, Vanguardia recalled.
The largest group of the dead came from Guatemala, and others came from countries including Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela and Colombia. Two Venezuelan migrants accused of starting the fire remain in a Ciudad Juárez prison on homicide and injury charges, La Verdad Juárez reported.
Telemundo, the US Spanish-language network, reported in 2025 that some of the men had been sent back from the United States under Title 42. That pandemic-era rule let US agents expel migrants to Mexico at once; one survivor was later living in Tennessee while pursuing asylum.
Survivors and Families Plan an Appeal
Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción (DHIA), a Ciudad Juárez rights group, represents ten survivors and ten families of the dead. Its lawyers, Marcos Zavala and Gabriela Romero Reza, were the only ones in court to oppose the dismissal, La Verdad Juárez reported.
Zavala said they will file an appeal and called the outcome "a procedural fraud". Several amparo suits, Mexico's constitutional challenges against official acts, are still unresolved, so the ruling is not yet final.
The Fundación para la Justicia, a Mexican rights group working with migrant families, said on Wednesday that "the victims did not lose a case". Instead, it said, "corruption and the impunity of politicians protected by power won again".
Some survivors told the court they still receive no medical care and that the former migration chief's apology did not satisfy them, La Jornada reported. Fifteen women held at the station that night survived but have never been formally recognised as victims, their lawyers say.
Sheinbaum Rules Out a New Investigation
On Wednesday, President Claudia Sheinbaum, in office since October 2024, ruled out a new investigation into the former migration chief. She told her morning press conference that "it is what the judges determined", the Ciudad Juárez papers El Diario and Norte Digital reported.
She said the government of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had investigated individual responsibility and compensated the victims. Victims' lawyer Marcos Zavala argues that prosecutors chose a lesser charge from the start, which opened the door to the deal, Infobae reported.
Where the Former Migration Chief Is Now
Garduño ran the INM when the fire broke out and kept the job until April 2025. In January 2026, Education Secretary Mario Delgado announced him as head of the ministry's vocational training centres, the Centros de Formación para el Trabajo.
On 24 January 2025, the same judge suspended the former migration chief's prosecution for 18 months under court-set conditions. He had to compensate victims, apologise in public and take courses in human rights and civil protection, and he made the apology in September 2025.
Leaving court, Garduño told reporters he had been 1,800 kilometres (about 1,100 miles) away that night and "was never negligent". He blamed the two Venezuelan migrants accused of setting mattresses on fire, Norte Digital reported.
He also said he had "always been respectful of human rights", La Jornada reported. About 20 protesters had greeted his arrival at the courthouse with shouts of "murderer" and "justice", the paper added.
What It Means
The most senior official charged over 40 deaths in Mexican custody, steps from the Texas border, will now avoid trial. Families in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela and Colombia now pin their hopes of holding him to account on the appeal.
DHIA says the INM, which still runs Mexico's migration stations, keeps detaining people beyond the 36-hour legal limit. Mexico also receives people deported from the United States, which keeps migration at the heart of its ties with Washington.
The ruling does not end the other prosecutions over the fire, and it is not a court finding that Garduño bore no blame. It means only that he met the conditions a judge set in 2025 in exchange for avoiding trial.
What Is Not Known
It is not known when an appeal court will hear the victims' challenge, or how long the pending amparo suits will take. Zavala said the victims do not even know yet which appeals court will decide those suits.
Nor is it clear when the cases against the other accused, including lower-ranking INM staff and the two Venezuelan migrants, will reach a verdict. The FGR has not said whether it will defend the dismissal if the victims appeal.
