On 27 March 2023, a fire occurred at an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, near the border with the United States. The fire killed 40 people and left 27 others seriously injured. According to Vice interviewees, prison officials demanded bribes from migrants to release them and avoid deportation. The fire was allegedly started by inmates when they set fire to their mattresses to protest their detention conditions and impending deportation. CCTV security footage obtained by the press shows INM personnel fleeing the spreading flames and smoke while leaving the detainees locked in their cell.
Background
The migrant processing facility – officially the Ciudad Juárez Temporary Shelter (Spanish: Estancia Provisional de Ciudad Juárez) – is used by Mexico's National Migration Institute (INM) to temporarily house migrants who illegally attempt to cross the border and are liable for deportation. It is located in downtown Ciudad Juárez, near the Rio Grande and adjacent to the Stanton-Lerdo Bridge.
Prior to the incident, tensions were already running high between authorities and migrants in Ciudad Juárez, where shelters were full of people trying to cross into the United States or requesting asylum; in late December 2022, the municipal government put the number of stranded migrants registered in its territory at 20,000. On 13 March, Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuéllar announced a hardening of the city's position with respect to stranded migrants, warning that its patience was "wearing thin". Some of the approximately 70 people in the men's section of the building when the fire broke out had been taken into custody that same afternoon in roundups carried out across Juárez by the INM at the mayor's request in response to repeated complaints from local residents and businessowners about aggressive panhandling and street harassment.
Fire survivors and guards interviewed by Vice described the facility as an "extortion center", saying that prison officials demanded bribes between $200 and $500 to release migrants, and that those who did not pay were deported.
Fire
At 10 p.m. CST, a fire broke out in the men's area of the detention center, with 68 migrants inside. Rescue workers, including firefighters and paramedics, reported to the scene of the fire and at least 21 of the injured were taken to hospitals. According to statements made by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a press conference the following morning, the fire was started when the facility's inmates set fire to mattresses in protest at their likely imminent deportation. He added that the inmates who started the fire "never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune".