‘Abject cruelty’: review of 911 calls from Texas ICE detention facility reveals disturbing conditions

Serious medical and mental health emergencies have been routine at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) federal detention facility since its opening last summer, according to records obtained by the Associated Press.Data and recordings from more than a hundred 911 calls at the Camp East Montana detention facility on the sprawling Fort Bliss army base in El Paso, Texas, along with interviews and court filings, offer a disturbing portrait of overcrowding, medical neglect, malnutrition and emotional distress.Current and former detainees described a camp where about 3,000 people are obliged to live in loud and unsanitary quarters. They struggle to obtain healthcare as disease spreads, they lose weight because of a lack of food and fear security guards known to use force to put down disturbances, the people said.“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,” said Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager in Columbia, Missouri, who spent several weeks in the camp before his deportation in February to the Netherlands. “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison,” he said.A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson who did not provide their name rejected claims of substandard conditions, saying Camp East Montana detainees receive food, water and medical treatment in a facility that is regularly cleaned.The AP investigation found: After its opening last August, staff at the camp made nearly one 911 call per day in its first five months of operation, according to records obtained of data covering 130 calls from the city of El Paso. In one call, a man is heard sobbing after being assaulted by another detainee. In another, a doctor says a man is banging his head against the wall while expressing suicidal thoughts. In a third, a nurse says a pregnant woman is in severe pain and has the coronavirus. Injured detainees ranged from a 19-year-old man who fell out of a bunk bed to a 79-year-old man struggling to breathe. At least 20 emergencies were reported as seizures, including some that resulted in serious head trauma. The calls show traumatized detainees have repeatedly tried to harm themselves. Two incidents have resulted in death. On 3 January 3, ICE said security guards responded after a 55-year-old Cuban man tried to harm himself and then used handcuffs and force to restrain him. A medical examiner ruled that Geraldo Lunas Campos’s death was a homicide caused by asphyxia.On 14 January, staff reported that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man took his own life days after he was detained in Minnesota during the anti-immigration crackdown there. In addition to those cases, at least six other suicide attempts were reported, according to records from the city of El Paso.The DHS spokesperson said the facility’s staff “closely monitors at-risk detainees” and provides mental health treatment.The Washington Post reported in September that a required ICE inspection found conditions at the facility violated at least 60 federal standards for immigration detention. But that report has never been released.The Texas congresswoman Veronica Escobar has toured the camp several times and has repeatedly demanded its closure.“This facility should not be operational. It feels like this contractor is reinventing the wheel, and people are losing their lives in their experiment,” she said.She said the facility had temporarily cut its population to less than 1,900 when she visited last month and will be closed to visitors temporarily because of a measles outbreak.On one visit, a female detainee showed Escobar a meager serving of scrambled eggs that was served still frozen in the middle. She learned detainees protested after they had stopped receiving juice, fruit and milk with their meals.Escobar met with a detainee from Ecuador who said his arm had been broken during a violent arrest by immigration agents in Minnesota. Weeks later, the congresswoman could still see the fractured bones in his forearm poking up under the skin.Escobar called for an investigation into contractor Acquisition Logistics LLC, which was awarded a contract worth up to $1.3bn to build and operate the camp.“People should be moved by the abject cruelty, but if they’re not, I hope they’re moved by the fraud and corruption,” Escobar said.