The Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador renewed calls on Friday for the US government to provide more funds to help prevent irregular immigration, after 39 migrants died in a fire at a detention center in Ciudad Juarez.

Americans, Mr. López Obrador said, want to solve “social problems simply by using force, without dealing with the causes.”

He made the statement during his daily press conference before traveling to Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-US border.

He recalled that his own administration allocated $100 million for social programs in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, which he said helped to reduce the departure of immigrants to the United States.

He added that he is constantly asking Washington to invest as well, in vain: “Neither with President (Donald) Trump have we achieved this goal, nor now with President Joe Biden.”

The Mexican head of state acknowledged, however, that the program to issue temporary passport visas implemented by the government allowed migration flows to be “significantly” reduced.

Mexican authorities have announced five arrests in their investigation into a serial “homicide” after the deaths of 39 migrants at a federal detention center in Juarez.

The fire broke out when at least one migrant set fire to mattresses to protest his deportation.

Staff at the center, public officials and private guards, stood idly by, failing to open the locked cell where the people who died were held, according to the prosecution.

Among the people who lost their lives were eighteen nationals of Guatemala, seven of El Salvador, the same number of Venezuelans, six of Honduras and one of Colombia. Another 27 people were injured, some of them in a very serious condition.