Two migrants were arrested on charges of inciting a riot at an immigration holding center in the southern state of Chiapas on Saturday night. The two men were arrested and transferred to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital, where they were being processed for immediate deportation.

The incident occurred at the Siglo XXI Migration Station in the border town of Tapachula — the largest immigration detention center in Latin America — where approximately 40 migrants were being processed after being detained in different parts of the country.

The National Migration Institute (INM) said the two men in question — reportedly Venezuelan nationals — began displaying aggressive behavior, prompting a broader disturbance in the station. 

The newly arrived migrants began demanding their immediate release, later claiming to be victims of systematic abuse and incommunicado detention.

While agents attempted to calm the tumult, the men are alleged to have attempted to set a mattress on fire.

INM agents, state and municipal security forces and emergency services required more than two hours to quell the uprising, but officials reported that no detainees were injured.

Luis García Villagrán, a human rights activist with the Center for Human Dignity AC, expressed skepticism about the incident, saying the INM often holds migrants incommunicado for periods of up to 10 days and denies them access to legal defense.

“There is a terrible lack of transparency about what is happening at this Immigration Station,” he told the newspaper La Jornada.

The organization said that some 65,000 migrants — many of whom are deported from the U.S. and transferred by land to Tapachula or the INM station in Villahermosa, Tabasco — are stranded in southern Mexico awaiting resolution of their cases. They are processed at these facilities and eventually released, but not permitted to travel outside the area.

The disturbance inside the facility reignited complaints about overcrowding, lack of due process and alleged human rights violations at Siglo XXI which is designed to hold up to 1,500 people.

There have been at least five previous incidents of riots and protests at Siglo XXI, including in April 2019, when migrants rioted, took control of the facilities, and nearly 1,300 migrants escaped.

The attempt to set fire to mattresses was particularly disturbing as it brought to mind the March 23, 2023, fire at a migrant facility in Cd. Juárez that resulted in the death of 40 migrants.

With reports from El Financiero, La Jornada, Proceso, El Economista and El Heraldo de México