The Dark Gasoline Baths

The Dark History of “Gasoline Baths” at The Border

In 1917, American health officials in El Paso, Texas, launched a campaign to use toxic chemicals, including gasoline baths, to disinfect immigrants seeking to enter the United States through the US-Mexico border.

Only a few days after the alarming practice was launched at the border, one Mexican woman refused to go through it, sparking a protest of thousands of Mexicans at the El Paso border. Her name was Carmelita Torres; she was a 17-year-old maid from Juarez who crossed the border daily for work.

Although Torres and the riots briefly shut down the border, the campaign would continue for decades and even go on to inspire Nazi scientists. In this video, we trace the dangerous policies that lasted well into the 1960s, from the forced kerosene baths to the use of the poisonous gas Zyklon B to the fumigations of migrant workers in the “Bracero program” using the pesticide DDT. Watch the video to learn more about this long history of toxic chemicals at the border.