Ciudad Juárez, Mexico - At least 39 people have been confirmed dead after a dormitory at a migrant detention center near the US-Mexico border caught fire on Monday night.

At least 39 are dead and 29 are injured after a fire took place at a detention center in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city located right across the border from El Paso, Texas, the Associated Press reported.

At the time of the blaze, there were 68 men from South and Central America being held in the center as they awaited asylum in the US.

The deadly incident comes amid increasing tensions over the way migrants are treated in Ciudad Juárez. Advocacy organizations and migrant centers sent a letter on March 9 complaining about the criminalization of people seeking to cross the border, including allegations of authorities abusing and using excessive force against migrants and police questioning people in the streets about their immigration status without cause.

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Human rights organizations have consistently demanded greater protections for migrants forced to wait in limbo in Mexico, often under dangerous conditions.

The US has faced criticism from rights organizations for promoting policies that infringe on migrants' human rights with impunity and lead to overcrowding in detention centers near the border.

Recent measures announced by the Biden administration that would effectively bar migrants from Central and South America from claiming asylum in the US are not likely to do anything to address the problem.

In the aftermath of Monday's tragedy, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed migrants had set mattresses alight in protest due to fears of deportation.

"They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune," López Obrador said.