As reported by the BBC, the Ciudad Juárez temporary residence is a “center used by the Mexican authorities to house migrants who attempt to cross illegally and who are candidates for deportation.”
Ciudad Juárez lies on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande across from El Paso, Texas.
In their statement, the Mexican bishops pointed out that “they’re not ‘shelters’” but migration stations that actually “operate as prisons and as punishment for irregular migration.”
“As a Church, we will always stand by the side of those who suffer the most, the excluded, the poor, and the people most in need,” the conference said in its statement.
The coordinators of the bishops of the Texas and Mexico border area said that “knowing that God loves his children, and that in him we are all brothers, we pray that he will receive the deceased and make them partakers of his eternal life; may he grant a speedy recovery to the injured, and may he give their families much strength.”
Torres, Lira, and García-Siller asked the corresponding authorities to clarify what happened and guarantee the safety of the other migrants.