Camp East Montana, a massive tent facility sprawling across the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, has become a hotbed of disease, abuse allegations, and environmental degradation in just nine months of operation. The camp, which holds up to 5,000 immigration detainees and currently houses roughly 2,505 people on any given day, is the largest immigration detention facility in the United States.
Detainees describe conditions that border on the nightmarish. Dust penetrates everywhere, coating blankets and clogging airways. Air conditioning runs relentlessly, turning the massive tent pods into near-freezing environments despite the Texas heat outside. Rain leaks through tarps. People wake on soaked mattresses, coughing constantly, often too sick to breathe properly.
D, a Venezuelan man who was held there last fall, recalled living in a 75-person pod and witnessing people refused medical care. His wife T, a U.S. citizen, said when he returned home he had lost 25 pounds and suffered from a severe cough that lasted six weeks. Most alarming: D was kept in detention for five days even after receiving his green card in October, despite no legal reason for his continued confinement.
The couple's story illustrates the arbitrary nature of the detentions. D came to the U.S. in 2022 believing Venezuelan refugees would be welcome. He met T at a mini-market where she was a customer, and they married that winter. When they attended what they thought was a routine green card interview, immigration officials suddenly whisked him away, claiming he had a court date neither he nor their attorney had ever heard of, then flew him over 1,000 miles from home to Camp East Montana.
Charlotte Weiss, a staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project who meets with detainees weekly, said she interviewed one person who hadn't seen sunlight or left the tents in weeks. "One of the declarants I spoke with described it as psychological torture," she said, referring to the relentless confinement and isolation.
Diseases spread rapidly in the confined quarters. Tuberculosis, COVID-19, and measles have been documented. Three detainees have died at the camp, part of a broader pattern: at least 26 deaths in ICE custody this fiscal year, and 46 since the Trump administration resumed office and dramatically expanded immigration detention.
Francisco Gaspar Cristóbal Andrés, who ran a plant nursery in Florida with his wife Lucía Pedro Juan, became the first detainee to die at Camp East Montana. His wife was deported without being permitted to see him and was flown to Guatemala, a country now devastated by drought, heatwaves, hurricanes, and mudslides driven by climate change.
Detainees are so broken by conditions that some ask immigration judges for deportation orders rather than pursue asylum claims, even when they have family in the U.S., according to Weiss. The desperation to escape the camp overrides their legal interests.
Homeland Security denies all allegations, issuing statements calling claims of inadequate meals, medical care denial, and unsafe conditions "unequivocally FALSE." The agency insists every detainee receives three nutritious meals daily, comprehensive medical and dental care, and opportunities to contact family and lawyers.
But the environmental and climate impact may be the most damning indictment. The facility relies heavily on giant electrical generators that run constantly to power lighting, ventilation, and air conditioning in poorly insulated tents. This design choice drives enormous energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional brick-and-mortar buildings that meet construction codes.
Wyatt Sassman, an associate professor of law at the University of Denver, explained the problem: "If you don't have a brick-and-mortar building properly insulated, using generators to air-condition or heat a tent exposes people to really high levels of localized air pollution." Holly Samuelson, an MIT architecture professor, noted that cooling an uninsulated tent requires far more energy than conditioning a code-built structure.
The location itself presents additional hazards. Fort Bliss has contaminated sites from historical industrial operations. Earthjustice documented arsenic levels in soil roughly half a mile away at nearly 19 times the EPA safety threshold. The organization also identified potential petroleum and asbestos contamination. Prevailing winds blow from those contaminated areas toward the camp. The Army denies the camp sits on a contaminated site, but research suggests little remediation has occurred since the 2019 findings.
Then there are the flights. ICE enforcement flights jumped 156 percent year-over-year in February 2026, reaching 1,630 flights that month alone, with detainees flown hundreds of miles from their homes to the camp and later back to native countries. These flights burn massive quantities of fuel, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Imelda Maynard, legal director of Estrella del Paso, an immigration legal services organization, visited parts of the camp and observed gaping holes in tents. She described the facility as "a powder keg," where exhausted staff and broken-down detainees create an explosive environment.
An ICE inspection in February identified 22 deficiencies related to use of force and restraints, part of 49 total deficiencies ranging from medical care to sexual abuse prevention. Yet the report recorded zero environmental health and safety violations, a glaring omission given what advocates and experts describe.
More tent camps are coming. The Trump administration has purchased warehouses to create mega-detention centers even larger than Camp East Montana. Sassman offered a grim assessment: "It seems like we know what the likely impacts of these facilities are going to be, and we're just barreling towards them."
Author James Rodriguez: "The government built a detention nightmare in the desert and called it acceptable, but the human suffering and environmental recklessness speak for themselves."
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