The 1917 Bath Riots occurred in January 1917 at the Santa Fe Street Bridge between El Paso, Texas, United States, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The riots are known to have been started by Carmelita Torres and lasted from January 28 to January 30 and were sparked by new immigration policies at the El Paso–Juárez Immigration and Naturalization Service office, requiring Mexicans crossing the border to take de-lousing baths and be vaccinated. Reports that nude photographs of women bathers and fear of potential fire from the kerosene baths, led Carmelita Torres to refuse to submit to the procedure. Denied a refund of her transport fare, she began yelling at the officials and convinced other riders to join her. After three days, the discontent subsided, but the disinfections of Mexicans at the U.S. border continued for forty years.
Background
By 1914, Venustiano Carranza had been sworn into office as Mexico's head of state ending the main fighting of the Mexican Revolution. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, tired of the fighting and being more concerned with events unfolding in Europe and World War I, withdrew American forces from Mexico. Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa refused to give up the fight and continued to execute border skirmishes. Between 1915 and 1917, typhus (which was sometimes reported as typhoid fever) spread from Mexico City to the provinces from Veracruz to Jalisco. In September 1916, Carranza called for a constitutional convention to end the conflict and bring peace to Mexico. The convention ended simultaneously with the end of the riots, on January 31, 1917, and subsequently the new constitution was signed on February 5.
During the same period, Thomas Calloway Lea Jr. was elected as the mayor of El Paso, Texas. Lea sent telegrams to U.S. Senators in Washington demanding a quarantine be put in place to stem the tide of "dirty lousey destitute Mexicans" who would spread typhus into El Paso. The Public Health Service Officer for El Paso, Dr. B. J. Lloyd, admitted there was little danger and opposed a quarantine, but suggested opening de-lousing plants. U.S. officials quickly adopted a policy of sanitizing Mexican immigrants at a disinfecting station in El Paso. The policy initially applied to all Mexicans entering the United States at El Paso, but soon spread to the Laredo–Nuevo Laredo crossing, and eventually along the entire U.S. Mexico border.
Men were separated from women and children into separate buildings, where they were stripped of all clothing and valuables. Most clothing and valuables were steamed. Other items which might be damaged by steam (like shoes, hats, or belts) were exposed to cyanogen gas. Attendants examined the nude people for lice. The officers conducting the strip searches were rumored to have photographed the nude women and shared the photos to others at bars. When lice were found on a man, the man's hair was clipped close to his head and the clippings were burned. For a woman, the hair was doused in a mixture of vinegar and kerosene, wrapped in a towel, and left on the hair for at least 30 minutes. If lice were found on re-inspection, the process was repeated. Once attendants declared the lice test had been "passed", the naked people were gathered in a bathing area and sprayed with a liquid soap made of soap chips and kerosene oil. After collecting their sanitized clothing and dressing, migrants were evaluated by a foreman, vaccinated and given a certificate that they had completed the procedure. From the disinfecting area, migrants then entered the Immigration and Naturalization Service building for processing.