Largest immigration detention center in the US is subject to legal action after allegations of abuse

ICE officer, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Human rights groups last week filed a lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alleging rights violations at the country's largest immigration detention center, located in El Paso, N.C. Texas.
According to Reuters, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with other groups, filed a complaint on behalf of four people currently detained at Camp East Montana - a sprawling tent structure set up by Donald Trump's administration as part of its mass deportation strategy.
In a statement, the ACLU said this is the first lawsuit against the facility, located in the region of the Fort Bliss military base, and that the action aims to improve conditions for its more than 2,700 inmates. Since the camp opened nine months ago, at least three people have died there.
In February this year, the American Congress ordered an inspection of the camp's temporary structures. At least 49 violations of detention standards were identified, including 11 related to "use of force and restraints" and five linked to "medical care."
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"We are suing to ensure that no other human being has to endure this inhumane treatment," said Kyle Virgien, an attorney with the ACLU's National Prison Project, which filed the lawsuit in conjunction with Human Rights Watch and the Texas Civil Rights Project.
According to the lawsuit, the detainees are confined in windowless cells, where they suffer physical abuse from guards, receive inadequate medical and mental health care, are subjected to indiscriminate use of isolation and are exposed to diseases such as measles and tuberculosis.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that the allegations are false and reiterated that no detainee was being beaten, abused or deprived of medical care in the detention center. According to him, as of March 12 there were no cases of measles there and there had been no increase in the number of deaths in ICE custody during the Trump administration.
"ICE takes the health and safety of all detainees in our custody seriously," the spokesperson said in a statement, adding that ICE has stricter detention standards than most American prisons housing U.S. citizens.
Venezuelan immigrant Erik Ivan Rodriguez, one of the authors of the action, stated in testimony that he suffered physical violence while authorities tried to coerce him into signing deportation documents. Another author, Gerald Akari Angye, from Cameroon, said he was beaten by guards.
The death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban immigrant, on January 3 of this year, was classified as a homicide by El Paso coroners, who cited "asphyxia due to compression of the neck and torso."
The conclusion contradicts information given by immigration authorities, who initially attributed the immigrant's death to "health problems." They later stated that he attempted suicide and died during a physical struggle with guards who were trying to save him.
Also according to the ACLU lawsuit, Campos was beaten to death after asking for medication for his asthma. A fourth man died shortly after being released from the camp, where he had been denied access to chemotherapy to treat cancer, according to the complaint.
Deaths in immigration detention centers in the United States reached the highest level in 20 years in 2025, as the Trump administration increased the number of people detained for alleged violations.

Source: G1

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