A Texas Immigrant Detention Center Is a ‘Human Rights Disaster,’ Civil Rights Groups Say in Report

Dozens of detainees at the country’s largest immigration detention center told investigators with civil rights groups that they’re subjected to beatings, medical neglect, malnutrition, and inhumane conditions.

In a joint report released today, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say that the abuses described in interviews with 71 people being held at Camp East Montana, a privately operated immigration detention center inside the Fort Bliss Army Base near El Paso, Texas, violate national and international human rights law.

“People during our interviews described unbearable cruelty and international human rights violations,” Angélica César Rosales, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and the report’s author, says. “They came forward and reported life-threatening medical neglect. They told us they were forced to live in filth, that they were beaten by masked guards, and that they had, at different points in their detention, access to communication with the outside world completely cut off. In some cases, that may amount to enforce disappearance under international law.”

The report is the latest in a string of human rights reports, news investigations, and internal government audits that have found rampant abuses inside Camp East Montana, which has a current capacity to hold 5,000 detainees.

Most notoriously, Camp East Montana is the site of the January 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially claimed that Lunas Campos had attempted to commit suicide and died during a struggle in which “guards were trying to save him.” However, the El Paso Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide by asphyxiation. Several Camp East Montana detainees came forward, including in the report, alleging that guards strangled Lunas Campos to death.

Camp East Montana consists of large, soft-sided canvas tents with no windows, inside of which are cages. In the report, detainees describe squalid showers and toilets, lack of hygiene supplies, and sometimes going weeks without being let outside.

“Between August and September, I went a month without seeing the sun,” one detained man said. “The guards were just not taking us outside. The people in my unit were all becoming anxious and desperate with nothing to do. I felt trapped, it was torture.”

Of the 71 detained people interviewed by Human Rights Watch, 64 of them, housed across at least five different tent units, “either personally experienced beatings or witnessed the beatings of their peers by ‘anti-disturbance’ guards,” the report said. The beatings were often in response to protests over conditions inside the camp.

“The guards run into our pod in groups of 15, sometimes it looks like 20,” one interviewee said. “They are dressed in all black, wear masks that cover everything but their eyes, and don’t wear name tags. When they come, they just run in, grab whoever they can and start to beat them….They are in control and can do whatever they want with us.”

Several detained men described the death of Lunas Campos, who they say was strangled to death by guards. One man recalled:

Geraldo was handcuffed outside of his cell and asking for his medicine. Nurses were distributing medicine, so he said, “I need my medicine.” The guards told him to shut up and to get in his cell. Geraldo refused and said he would enter once they gave him his medicine. Guards grabbed Geraldo and shoved him into the cell. They locked the door. The walls in SHU [the solitary housing unit] are very thin; I could hear everything. It sounded like guards were hitting Geraldo, like his body was being punched and slammed. Geraldo screamed for help. He said, “I can’t breathe!” many times. They continued to beat him. He said, “You are suffocating me.” Everything went silent.

César Rosales says that one of the interviews that stuck with her was with a 66-year-old Cuban man who had been living in Florida for more than 40 years prior to being detained. The man was also a cancer survivor, and he’d gone on hunger strike to protest staff’s refusal to give him daily medication that he needed.

“When we met him, he’d been on a hunger strike for a couple of days,” Cesar says. “And instead of responding by providing his medication and getting him the treatment that he needed, they placed him in solitary confinement and later transferred him to a different detention facility. That is one of many instances of abuse and medical neglect that we documented, but it is truly indicative of the abuse that people are facing. We also interviewed his wife, and his wife told us that she was afraid that he would not survive immigration detention.”

An internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) inspection of Camp East Montana earlier this year uncovered dozens of violations of national detention standards, including failures to document use of force and medical care, and failure to respond to grievances about lack of medical care. A detainee with tuberculosis wasn’t isolated; another detainee escaped.

A Government Accountability Office audit in June found that ICE wasted millions of dollars expediting the awarding of the contract and the opening of Camp East Montana. ICE terminated its contract and switched to a new private contractor in April.

In response to the internal reports and media inquiries, the DHS has said that its new contract will improve oversight of Camp East Montana. “Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” a DHS spokesperson told Reason in June.

However, César Rosales says there’s been no noticeable change in what she’s heard from people inside Camp East Montana.

“Conditions have consistently been abusive,” César Rosales says. “People are still reporting that they are living in filth. They’re experiencing life-threatening medical neglect. In some cases, they’re not being given recreation in accordance with ICE and international standards. They’re still having problems reaching out to attorneys, and there’s really no functional law library at the facility, so there’s trouble defending their own immigration cases as well. All of which to say, abuses of the facility are persisting despite the change superficial change in contractors.”

The report calls for the shutdown of Camp East Montana and an end to the Trump administration’s mass deportation program. Short of that, it calls for reinstating the three DHS oversight offices that were largely gutted by the Trump administration, and for revitalizing Congress’ and state lawmakers’ statutory authority to inspect detention centers.

Allegations of medical neglect, brutality, and lack of due process have poured out of federal immigration detention centers since the Trump administration launched its mass deportation program. Another medical examiner’s report recently obtained by Reason found that an ICE detainee died of complications from a severe tooth infection.