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The FBI is investigating the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban citizen who died on January 3 while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Texas, as confirmed this Thursday by the acting director of the agency before Congress.
According to information from Newsweek, Todd Lyons made the revelation during a budget hearing in the House of Representatives regarding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "Once we received that information, we proceeded to refer the case, which is now in the hands of the FBI," Lyons stated, adding that he could not comment on ongoing investigations.
Lunas Campos passed away at the Camp East Montana detention center, located at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death as homicide by asphyxiation caused by compression of the neck and torso.
That conclusion directly contradicts the official version of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which stated that the detainee had attempted to take his own life and that the agents acted quickly to provide him with emergency medical attention.
Witnesses told the Associated Press agency that Lunas Campos, already handcuffed, was pinned to the ground by at least five guards, one of whom strangled him with an arm around his neck. According to these testimonies, the detainee pleaded "I can't breathe" before losing consciousness. ICE described the incident as "spontaneous use of force" to prevent self-harm.
The Democratic representative from Texas, Veronica Escobar, was the one who questioned Lyons about the status of the investigation during the hearing. Escobar also expressed her intention to speak more in depth with the interim director about the alleged lies of the detention center staff regarding the circumstances of the death.
Lunas Campos arrived in the United States in 1996 as part of a wave of Cuban rafters and lived for over two decades in Rochester, New York, where he was the father of four children. He was arrested by ICE on July 14, 2025, and transferred to Camp East Montana on September 6 of that year. He had a deportation order from 2005 that was never executed due to a lack of travel documents from the Cuban government.
Her death was one of three recorded at Camp East Montana in just 44 days, between December 2025 and January 2026, which sparked protests from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas and other organizations demanding the immediate closure of the center. A federal judge intervened to halt the deportations of witnesses who witnessed her death, and the family filed a lawsuit demanding accountability.
The case is set against a backdrop of increasing concern regarding the conditions in immigration detention centers. As of April 15, 2026, there had already been 16 immigrant deaths in ICE custody this year, compared to 33 in all of 2025—the deadliest year in over two decades—and 11 in 2024. Camp East Montana, the largest immigration detention center in the United States with a capacity of 5,000 people, has been described by activists as a "black hole" due to reports of beatings, denial of medical care, and deplorable sanitary conditions.
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