ICE detention deaths are on a record pace. One Texas facility bears the brunt

ICE inspectors in February found 49 violations to detention standards at Camp East Montana, including failure from staff to"accurately document required checks to prevent significant self-harm and suicide." Immigration ICE detention deaths are on a record pace. One Texas facility bears the brunt April 3, 202612:03 AM ET Sergio Martínez-Beltrán Entrance to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán/NPR hide caption toggle caption Sergio Martínez-Beltrán/NPR EL PASO, Texas — A long paved road, flanked by desert sand, leads to the big white tents usually housing some 3,000 immigrants with beds for up to 2,000 more. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention center is located on the grounds of the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss military base and is known as Camp East Montana. Opened in August 2025, it's currently the largest immigrant detention center in the U.S. and one of the facilities with the most detainee deaths. Out of 25 people who died in ICE detention since October, 3 were at Camp East Montana. Sponsor Message Concerns are rising among immigration advocates, lawmakers and former detainees about the company that initially ran the detention center, Acquisition Logistics, which had never run a center before securing a $1.3 billion federal contract. Advocates and multiple members of Congress are calling for the facility to be shut down. "When they say in the news that this is the worst facility in the country, they damn right," said Owen Ramsingh, a man from the Netherlands who was detained at Camp East Montana for more than four months before being deported in February. He called the living conditions, food, bathrooms, and treatment by the facility's staff "horrible." Ramsingh said he saw detainees battling mental health crises due to being detained for long periods in large cells that could house up to 72 men. He says they were served small portions of food, and suffered in cramped quarters with foul excrement odor emanating from the bathrooms in the cells. ICE inspectors in February found 49 violations to detention standards at the facility, including inadequate medical care and failure from staff to "accurately document required checks to prevent significant self-harm and suicide." More than 45 people interviewed by the ACLU at Camp East Montana "reveal alarming conditions of confinement and repeated instances of coercion, physical force, and threats against immigrants facing third-country deportations, in violation of agency policies and standards, as well as statutory and constitutional protections," the civil liberties group said in its December letter to ICE. Sponsor Message Multiple detainee deaths raise big concerns In December, Francisco Gaspar-Andres, a Guatemalan man, died of kidney failure after being hospitalized for two weeks, DHS said. A month later, Cuban national Geraldo Luna Campos died while in detention. Initially, DHS said he died after experiencing "medical distress." The agency said he had become "disruptive while in line for medication" and was placed in segregation. However, an autopsy conducted by the El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death a homicide. The report said he died from "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression." No one has been charged in his death. A third death happened on Jan. 14, according to DHS. Victor Manuel Diaz, a national of Nicaragua died by suicide, DHS said in a statement. But Diaz's family do not believe that to be true. "When we talked to Victor after he had been detained by ICE in Minnesota and brought to Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, we were not worried because Victor would just be returned to Nicaragua to us. It was a very brief call," the family said in a statement to NPR. "Little did we know it was the last time we would ever hear his voice." Attorney Randall Kallinen holds a photo of the burial of Victor Manuel Diaz, a Nicaraguan man who died while in detention at Camp East Montana. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán/NPR hide caption toggle caption Sergio Martínez-Beltrán/NPR The family's attorney, Randall Kallinen, told reporters last month Diaz's autopsy was performed by the Army's medical examiner. "It was said that he died in a room by himself, in a clinic room. And we haven't received word of why he was in the clinic," Kallinen said. "Because they're not saying he he tried to commit suicide somewhere else and then went to the clinic room — they're saying he was in the clinic. That's what their story is." In a statement to NPR, the Department of Homeland Security said "When there are signs of a detainee self-harming, staff abides by strict prevention and intervention protocol to ensure the detainee's health and wellbeing is protected." Sponsor Message The agency said ICE conducts mental health intake screenings for detainees within 12 hours of their arrival to any detention facility. Lack of nutrition, mental health crises 45-year-old Owen Ramsingh has lived in the U.S. since 1986, when he came to Omaha, Nebraska with his mother when he was just five years old. When he was a teenager, Ramsingh was convicted of possession of crack cocaine. He served 25 months in prison, part of that time