ICE Detention Center Contractor Endangered Detainees, Destroyed Homicide Evidence

from the breaking-people,-blowing-money dept

One of ICE’s largest detention centers is conveniently located only miles from the US border in El Paso, Texas. Erected on an apparently unused section of the Ft. Bliss military base, the detention center was crafted to hold up to 5,000 detainees at a time.

Camp East Montana has already earned the reputation as one of the worst places for detainees to be sent. Previous reporting has uncovered nasty things like guards setting up suicide death pools, rather than… you know… doing whatever they could to deter detainees from committing suicide.

In addition to this, there have been measles outbreaks and inspections detailing dozens of violations at the facility, including a seemingly deliberate unwillingness to provide basic medical care for detainees.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just released its report [PDF] on Camp East Montana and it doesn’t contain anything ICE (or its contractors) might legitimately consider to be a “win,” much less a “barely perceptible improvement.”

As NPR notes in its reporting on the GAO’s report, ICE is running through contractors rapidly, which suggests the companies hoping to get in on the temporary jail business aren’t particularly qualified to do so. To date, three different contractors have been in charge of this prison camp: Creative Corrections, Amentum Services, and this company (I guess it’s technically a company?) that was recently kicked to curb by ICE shortly after the GAO began its investigation:

When the Trump administration awarded a $1.26 billion contract this summer to build and operate a new tent city detention center in Texas, it made headlines, and not just because the facility, located at the Fort Bliss Army base, was expected to be the biggest of its kind in the country. The company that won the job, Acquisition Logistics, was so small it operated out of a single-family home in Richmond, Virginia. Almost nobody had heard of it. “A random house…just won $1.26 billion from ICE,” wrote the New Republic.

That likely explains a lot of the flaws the GAO uncovered. But the federal government has to take a lot of the blame itself. First off, this contract was somehow secured by the US Navy on behalf of ICE, which definitely makes it seem more shady than it already seems.

But ICE was so busy blowing billions on satisfying Trump’s bigoted fantasies that it couldn’t even be bothered to craft a contract that wouldn’t screw taxpayers out of even more money. In most prisons and detention centers, those being held by the government are often underfed. In the early days of Camp East Montana, it was the complete opposite:

The contract identified pricing for services needed to reach initial operational capacity of 1,000 detained noncitizens, along with pricing to increase the capacity of the facility by 250 detained noncitizens every week until it reached its full operational capacity of 5,000. Based on our review of contract documents and invoices, the Army began paying the full cost for guards, medical services, transportation, meals, and other services on August 1, 2025. However, there were no detained noncitizens at the facility until August 16. Between August 1 and August 15, 2025, the Army wasted up to $11.5 million for these services. Further, because the Army set a fixed price for meals based on the capacity of the facility, it paid about an additional $423,000 for meals it did not need when the facility was operating below its designated capacity from August 16, 2025, through September 30, 2025.

That’s the good news… somehow. It gets so much worse after that. While wasting food is certainly problematic when so many detainees at other prison facilities go hungry, this contractor was apparently so inept and inexperienced that pretty much everything it did made things worse or more dangerous for detainees.

According to an ICE report, there were no security cameras on the perimeter fencing and there were blind spots in the placement of cameras throughout the facility, increasing the risk of a sexual assault or an escape. In addition, during our visit to the facility on September 16, 2025, officials told us that the post responsible for monitoring security camera footage for all areas of the facility was understaffed.

[…]

Contractors told ICE they were unable to accommodate detained noncitizens using wheelchairs. According to an ICE report, the facility did not have any Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant showers in the housing units when it opened.

[…]

In January 2026, a contract security guard at Camp East Montana lost their loaded firearm at the facility. According to an ICE official, despite several searches of the facility, as of March 2026 the firearm had not been recovered.

[…]

[D]etained noncitizens with chronic conditions did not receive treatment and care in accordance with National Detention Standards. For example, none of the detained noncitizens with diabetes or HIV had treatment plans in place.

[…]

On March 3, 2026, ICE issued a discrepancy report related to a detained noncitizen escaping from Camp East Montana in October 2025. ICE oversight officials attributed the escape to the contractor’s inability to account for detained noncitizens

Your severity mileage may vary, but this covers everything from a lack of ADA compliance to losing a loaded handgun, with plenty of ineptitude/indifference in between.

There’s more. And it’s even worse than what’s seen above.

On February 20, 2026, ICE issued a discrepancy report for a detained noncitizen death by use of force in January 2026. The coroner’s autopsy found the death to be a homicide due to asphyxia. However, the contractor did not provide use of force and death reports to ICE, as required. In addition, evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed.

Don’t let the “or” fool you. Reports written by agencies that strive to be as neutral and non-judgmental as possible don’t tend to engage in speculation. If the GAO thinks evidence has most likely been destroyed, it’s going to portray it as just being one of two options. If the GAO thought it was more likely the evidence had just been misplaced or perhaps never gathered correctly, it would not have added “or destroyed” to this sentence.

What’s absolutely unclear is whether or not the contractor acted alone. The GAO doesn’t discuss this further, which does leave this part open to speculation. Either the contractor acted alone because it felt it might be held accountable for this death, or it was urged to eternally “misplace” evidence that might implicate the contractor and/or ICE itself.

Either way, there’s nothing in this report that suggests ICE or its contractors are going out of their way to ensure the health and safety of detainees. And if this is happening here, it’s certainly happening anywhere else ICE is stashing arrestees.

The government has decided the best use of our resources is rounding up as many non-white migrants as possible and toss them into prison camps. And it has decided it doesn’t care how this is done. It only cares that it gets done. This nation — if it manages to survive this constant onslaught on our ideals — will have to deal with repercussions of the actions of a handful of hateful people for decades to come.

Filed Under: camp east montana, detention facilities, dhs, el paso, ice, mass deportation, rights violations, trump administration

Companies: acquisition logistics, amentum services