Political and social pressure on the U.S. immigration detention system grows again after it emerged that three people died in just 44 days at Camp East Montana, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility located in Fort Bliss, Texas.
State and federal lawmakers are now demanding a full and transparent investigation into what goes on inside this complex, which is accused of prioritizing profits over standards of safety and basic human care.
As reported by Common Dreamsthe most recent alert was triggered by the death of Víctor Manuel Díaz, a 36-year-old immigrant of Nicaraguan nationality, arrested by ICE in Minneapolis and transferred to Texas.
On January 14, he was found unconscious in his cell and later declared dead. Although the agency initially spoke of a “presumed suicide,” the actual cause of his death is still under investigation, reinforcing complaints about the center’s conditions and lack of effective supervision.
Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan demanded immediate answers. “We deserve to know what happened,” he said, joining voices questioning how multiple deaths could accumulate in such a short time within the same facility.
The case that struck the Cuban community the most is that of Geraldo Lunas Camposaged 55, died January 3 in federal custody at that same facility. For days, his family accepted the official version that it was a suicide attempt. However, that account collapsed when a preliminary autopsy report concluded that he had died of asphyxiation and that his death should be classified as a homicide.
According to information released by The Associated Pressthe autopsy indicates asphyxia due to compression of the neck and chest. An eyewitness stated that he saw several guards struggling with the Cuban, already handcuffed, and one of them applying a strangulation key to him while Lunas Campos repeated that he couldn’t breathe. A few minutes later, his body stopped moving.
This revelation has strengthened calls for the center’s immediate closure. Texas Democratic congresswoman Verónica Escobar warned that two deaths in one month highlight a serious deterioration of internal conditions and recalled that Camp East Montana is managed by Acquisition Logistics LLC, a private company with no previous experience in managing detention centers, benefited from a contract worth more than 1,200 million dollars.
Common Dreams points out that ICE inspectors themselves found dozens of violations of federal rules months ago, including medical malpractice, lack of security protocols and obstacles for detainees to communicate with their lawyers. In this context, the Cuban’s death does not appear as an isolated event, but as part of a broader pattern.
A month before Lunas Campos, Francisco Gaspar Andrés, a 49-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, also died in that center, whose death was attributed by ICE to “natural” causes. Now, with a medical examiner indicating homicide in the Cuban case and another death still to be clarified, the doubts increase.
For many migrant families, inside and outside the United States, fear is not abstract. It’s concrete. It is the fear that a loved one will enter a detention center and not come out alive. As a former National Nurses United consultant summed it up quoted by Common Dreams“ICE detention centers are functioning as death camps.”
