A federal lawsuit filed Saturday targets Immigration and Customs Enforcement over what advocates call a humanitarian crisis at Camp East Montana, the nation's largest immigration detention facility, where four named detainees are suing on behalf of hundreds currently confined there and those who will be held in the future.
The sprawling tent camp sits on Fort Bliss military base near El Paso and has held an average of 2,505 people daily so far this fiscal year, with capacity to hold up to 5,000. The federal government erected the facility in August to rapidly expand immigration detention under the Trump administration.
The class action complaint, filed in federal court in El Paso by the ACLU, ACLU of Texas, Human Rights Watch, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the law firm Farella Braun + Martel LLP, alleges conditions amount to constitutional violations and abuse. The suit names the Department of Homeland Security, ICE leadership, Pentagon officials, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as defendants.
According to the 78-page complaint, detainees face inadequate food, dangerous living quarters, sexual harassment by guards, disease outbreaks, indiscriminate solitary confinement, and what the suit calls abhorrent medical care. Three deaths have been reported at the facility since it opened. The suit also alleges inappropriate use of force against detainees and notes that sand and dust from the desert pour through gaps in the tents where people sleep.
Gerald Akari Angye, one of the four named plaintiffs originally from Cameroon, described being severely beaten by guards for asking to speak to an attorney. In a statement released by the Texas Civil Rights Project, Angye said he had endured torture in his home country but was shocked by his treatment in the United States. He remains injured, he said, and continues to cough up blood from the desert dust.
The lawsuit characterizes the facility as a system designed to inflict punishment. It notes that only 20 percent of those detained have criminal backgrounds, yet conditions are deliberately punitive to discourage immigrants from pursuing legal claims to remain in the country. Some detainees have requested deportation rather than continue enduring the conditions, according to court documents.
Detainees report constant exposure to urine, feces, and body odor in the windowless tent enclosures, along with sexual harassment during frequent pat-down searches. Mental health deterioration is widespread, with some detainees contemplating suicide and receiving no meaningful psychological support, the lawsuit states.
Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project, called Camp East Montana a civil rights catastrophe. Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the facility has caused too many dangerous and deadly consequences and called for justice for those who have died and those subjected to outrageous conditions stripped of dignity.
The suit alleges violations of the Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act. DHS has previously denied allegations about poor conditions at the facility, calling accusations about food quality, medical care, safety, and access to lawyers unequivocally false. Neither DHS nor ICE responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Author James Rodriguez: "Ten months in and this facility has become a symbol of how fast detention can expand when political will aligns with crisis rhetoric, but the human toll documented here makes clear that speed shouldn't override accountability."
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