Detention camps like this are what we will look back on and wonder how it is we could have let this happen.
People held at America’s largest ICE detention camp say they are being beaten by guards, denied medical care, and confined in windowless tents for up to 24 hours a day.
The facility is Camp East Montana, on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, where up to 5,000 people can be held.
This week (10/16/26), civil rights lawyers filed more than 40 sworn declarations in federal court describing overcrowding, hunger, filthy toilets, infectious disease outbreaks, and being punished if they ask for help.
Three people have died in custody at the facility.
Dean Williams, former head of the Colorado and Alaska prison systems, reviewed the evidence and concluded that the treatment is worse than those in the highest-security prisons he has overseen.
ICE’s own inspectors documented serious problems in February, identifying 49 deficiencies involving medical care, security, and use of force.
Yet, the Department of Homeland Security has denied that conditions at the camp are inhumane.
According to court filings citing ICE data from April, approximately 80 percent of detainees had no criminal histories.
Detention camps like this are what we will look back on and wonder how it is we could have let this happen.
Sources
- ACLU: Federal court motion and detainee declarations
- ACLU: Akari Angye et al. v. ICE
- The Guardian: Report on Camp East Montana conditions
- GAO: Immigration detention oversight report
- Human Rights Watch: Fort Bliss detention report
- Texas Tribune: Death in ICE custody
- ACLU: Investigation of Fort Bliss detention
