On Monday night, a fire broke out at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican city just across the border from El Paso, Texas. By the time the smoke cleared, nearly 40 migrants were dead.
Mexican and American government officials have blamed many factors for the tragedy. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the migrants had started the fire "as a form of protest" after learning they would be deported. (Some migrants who had previously been in the shelter have doubted this account, saying the center strips all migrants of their possessions). Some have implicated the detention center guards, who were seen in a video "not appear[ing] to make any effort to open the cell doors," per the Associated Press.
