There have been three deaths reported in the last two months at the nation’s largest immigration detention facility, Camp East Montana, located in El Paso and adjacent to Fort Bliss.
The most recent death was last Wednesday, a 36-year-old from Nicaragua arrested earlier this month in Minneapolis. It’s believed to be a suicide, according to the most recent reports.
The first death was in early December and was linked to a long-standing illness.
But the second, the death of a 55-year-old Cuban national, is drawing widespread scrutiny and is likely to be ruled a homicide.
Douglas MacMillan, who reports for the Washington Post, said initial reports from ICE about the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos did not include cause of death information.
“Essentially, they said that this man was being disruptive. He was taken to the isolated segregation unit,” MacMillan said. “And then at some point after that, the staff observed him in distress and then they went to try to save his life and that he died.”
However, MacMillan soon heard from sources that there was a use of force incident related to Lunas Campos before his death.
“I contacted the family of this man who also had heard something along the lines of there was some kind of a conflict, some kind of a disruption between this man and the staff,” MacMillan said. “They contacted the medical examiner, who was performing an autopsy, and the autopsy is still not concluded. On a preliminary basis, the medical examiner told his family that they believe that the cause of death is asphyxia due to compression of the chest and neck, which means he did not get enough oxygen, and that they’re preparing to list the manner of death as homicide.”
MacMillan said the family also heard from other detainees within the facility who witnessed what happened to Lunas Campos.
“The family members started getting calls from inside the facility of other fellow detainees who said they were witnesses to his death,” MacMillan said. “And that one of them said that he observed guards choking the man to death.”
Two of these witnesses also spoke to MacMillan as part of his reporting, and MacMillan said both are now facing deportation.
“They very bravely put their name behind their statements and their accounts of events. Those accounts now, as I said, are backed up by the findings of a medical examiner. And those accounts conflict with what the government is saying about this death. The government, by the way, now is saying that they think the man tried to kill himself. So there’s a conflicting account there,” he said.
“And now what we know is that these two men, since speaking to me, the government has been taking steps to deport them, to get them out of the country.”
Both witnesses were already in an ICE detention facility, so MacMillan said they were likely headed for deportation regardless.
“These are men who both have criminal records and they were sent to detention. That’s kind of the last stop before you’re deported,” he said. “But it is notable that they’re being deported after coming forward as witnesses to what is being investigated, because their accounts and their versions of events will be difficult for investigators to verify and obtain if they’re sent off to another country.”
MacMillan said this story is part of a pattern that shows an increasing number of deaths at ICE detention centers nationwide.
“There’s an escalating crisis in these detention centers as they’re flooding with more and more people. I think the detention center staff are unprepared for it,” he said. “These situations are kind of getting out of control… And in this situation with this man, Geraldo Luna Campos, the worst happened. I think we’re already starting to see an escalating number of deaths in detention.”
There have been six deaths in detention centers in just the first two weeks of this year, MacMillan said.
“It’s an unprecedented rate,” he said. “And the question will be, does the government acknowledge that this is a crisis? And what steps will they take to try to address that crisis?”