Smoke and Lies

Mexico has one of the world’s largest immigrant detention systems, and it continues to grow with the support of the United States. As it expands, so does the danger to the people held in this opaque system, where impunity thrives.

On March 27, 2023, 40 men died in a fire at a temporary migrant detention facility in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. As smoke filled the building, 67 men were trapped inside a locked cell. Private security staff and agents with the National Migration Institute (INM) never let them out.

To this day, the question is, why?

Two weeks after the fire, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, told the press that the INM agent with the key to the men’s cell was not at the facility when the fire broke out. The fire had been set by detained men who were protesting a lack of food and potable water, and denouncing threats of deportation. They lit their vinyl and foam sleeping mats on fire, which caused the cell to fill with smoke. Most died from asphyxiation.

The 27 survivors are now facing lifelong health complications. They and the families of the deceased have never received adequate answers about what happened the night of the fire. To date, 11 people, including private security staff, INM officials, and two Venezuelan men who allegedly started the fire, have been criminally charged. But no trial date has been set.

Now, answers to many questions about that fatal night are provided in a new binational investigation published today called Smoke and Lies: Uncovering the Truth about the Ciudad Juárez Fire. A team from Lighthouse Reports, including myself as project lead, worked with reporters at two independent border news outlets: La Verdad in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso Matters in Texas to piece together the movements of staff before, during, and after the fire. During the monthslong investigation, we spoke with survivors, examined 16 hours of CCTV footage, read thousands of pages of government documents, and built a 3D model of the government-run facility to uncover the truth.

I’m very proud of this investigation and thankful to Lighthouse Reports, a global investigative nonprofit, for spearheading this project. This is Lighthouse’s first collaboration focused on the U.S.-Mexico border. I’m also very thankful to our media partners, La Verdad and El Paso Matters, both of which are independent publications doing amazing work.

I hope you will watch the visual investigation below and read the articles in both Spanish and English at La Verdad and El Paso Matters. Nearly a year has passed since the tragedy, and for those 67 families marked by the fire, justice has still not been served.