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Political and social pressure on the U.S. immigration detention system is rising again following revelations that three people have died in just 44 days at the Camp East Montana facility, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center located in Fort Bliss, Texas.
State and federal lawmakers are now demanding a thorough and transparent investigation into what is happening within this complex, which has been criticized for prioritizing profits over basic safety standards and humane care.
According to a report by Common Dreams, the latest alarm was raised by the death of Víctor Manuel Díaz, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant who was detained by ICE in Minneapolis and transferred to Texas.
On January 14, he was found unconscious in his cell and later pronounced dead. Although the agency initially referred to it as a "suspected suicide," the actual cause of his death remains under investigation, which has strengthened allegations regarding the conditions of the facility and the lack of effective oversight.
Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, called for immediate answers. “We deserve to know what happened,” she stated, joining others who are questioning how it is possible for several deaths to occur in such a short time within the same facility.
The case that has most shaken the Cuban community is that of Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55 years old, died on January 3 while in federal custody at that same facility. For days, his family accepted the official version that pointed to a suicide attempt. However, that narrative collapsed when a preliminary forensic report concluded that he died from asphyxia and that his death should be classified as homicide.
According to information released by The Associated Press, the autopsy indicates death by neck and chest compression asphyxia. An eyewitness claimed to have seen several guards struggling with the Cuban, who was already handcuffed, and one of them applying a chokehold while Lunas Campos repeated that he couldn't breathe. Minutes later, his body stopped moving.
This revelation has reinforced the demands for the immediate closure of the facility. Democratic Congresswoman from Texas Verónica Escobar warned that two deaths in one month illustrate a serious deterioration of internal conditions and reminded that Camp East Montana is operated by Acquisition Logistics LLC, a private company with no prior experience in the management of detention centers, which has benefited from a contract of over 1.2 billion dollars.
Common Dreams emphasizes that inspectors from ICE themselves identified dozens of violations of federal regulations months ago, including medical neglect, lack of safety protocols, and obstacles for detainees to communicate with their attorneys. In this context, the death of the Cuban does not seem like an isolated incident, but rather part of a broader pattern.
A month before Lunas Campos, Francisco Gaspar Andrés, a 49-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, also died at that facility, with ICE attributing his death to "natural causes." Now, with a coroner indicating homicide in the case of the Cuban and another death still unexplained, questions are multiplying.
For many migrant families, both inside and outside the United States, fear is not abstract. It is concrete. It is the fear that a loved one will enter a detention center and not come out alive. As summarized by a former advisor to National Nurses United quoted by Common Dreams, “ICE detention centers are operating like extermination camps.”
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