CHIHUAHUA, Mexico – Migrants attempting to avoid arrest set fire to blankets and mattresses at a camp in the northern Mexican city of Chihuahua during a government raid to clear the area early Saturday morning.
The enforcement action near the US-Mexico border comes just days before US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday. Trump has accused Mexico’s government of failing to do enough to reduce migration to the US and has threatened sweeping tariffs.
Approximately 250 Mexican officials, including National Guard military police in anti-riot gear, surrounded the encampment around midnight, according to a Reuters witness.
According to the witness, migrants began setting fire to mattresses and blankets in protest before attempting to flee the scene with babies and belongings.
There were no deaths or injuries reported in the fire, which was extinguished in less than an hour.
The Mexican migration agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A migration official, who was not authorized to speak with reporters, told Reuters that the operation’s goal was to transport the migrants to Mexico’s southern border, where they would be instructed to return to their home countries.
It was unclear how many people had been detained.
Many of the 150 migrants were Venezuelan families who had stopped at the camp in Chihuahua City, about 220 miles (360 kilometers) from the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, on their way north to the United States.
Daniel Barrios, a Venezuelan migrant traveling with a woman carrying a baby on her back and a child wearing a sparkly blue backpack, said they were taken aback by the unexpected police presence.
“They surrounded the camp … they asked just to talk, that they were going to do an inspection and all that,” he told me.
“Tell me, is it logical to come with this whole police and military force, supposedly to do an inspection at a camp, when they could do it during the day?”
Barrios cut off his remarks when he noticed officials in the distance, saying, “We have to move.”
Another family that fled the camp expressed confusion and fear. A woman sobbed as she clutched two children close to her, and two men carried toddlers in their arms as red smoke billowed high into the air behind them.
“The police arrived, as did migration officials. “We arrived at this shelter today, and we have no idea what is going on,” said one of the men. “We are disoriented. “We are scared.”