ICE Inspectors Found 49 Violations at Camp East Montana, Including Suicide Prevention Failures

Five weeks after Geraldo Lunas Campos suffocated during a scuffle with guards inside Camp East Montana, ICE's own inspectors found the facility failing at the most basic layer of oversight designed to prevent exactly that kind of death: staff were not accurately documenting required checks to prevent significant self-harm and suicide.

ICE's Office of Detention Oversight conducted a congressionally mandated inspection over three days in February at the privately run tent facility on the Fort Bliss Army post in El Paso, Texas. The resulting report, which ICE posted online this week, documented 49 deficiencies across nine of the 24 standards reviewed. Fifteen standards were found to be in compliance. Of the 49 violations, 22 fell under use of force and restraints, 11 under facility security and control, and five under medical care. Three were flagged as priority component deficiencies, the report's most serious classification: two under security and one under medical care.

The inspection's timing made the documentation failures on suicide prevention especially stark. A local medical examiner had ruled Campos' January death a homicide. ICE contended that staff had been attempting to prevent Campos from harming himself when the confrontation turned fatal. A 911 call obtained separately showed Campos was in handcuffs during the encounter. More than a month later, inspectors found that the facility still wasn't keeping proper records of the welfare checks meant to catch exactly these kinds of crises before they escalate.

Detainees and their attorneys had separately described a facility plagued by shortages of medical care, hygiene products and food. During storms, the soft-sided bunk rooms leaked water onto beds. Many of those held at Camp East Montana have no significant criminal history; most are awaiting deportation or transfer to another facility, typically staying only days or weeks.

The facility had already cycled through one contractor before the inspection occurred. Acquisition Logistics LLC, which held a roughly $1.2 billion contract to run the camp after it was hastily opened in August 2025, was replaced on March 12 by Amentum Services, a more established defense and government services contractor. Amentum holds a no-bid contract valued at nearly $453 million, running through September 30.

Despite 49 violations, the inspection report rated Camp East Montana "acceptable/adequate." It was the first inspection released by the Office of Detention Oversight since the facility opened. During the camp's first 50 days, ICE's own oversight unit found conditions violated at least 60 federal standards.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, the El Paso Democrat who has toured the facility and spoken directly with detainees, said the findings represented only part of the problem. "ICE is completely uninterested in really creating any change or holding the contractor accountable," she said, calling the inspection results "a drop in the bucket of what is so profoundly wrong with that facility." Escobar said detainees have continued to report medical neglect and wonders whether the poor conditions are intentional, designed to pressure people into agreeing to self-deport. With a new contractor now running the camp and the inspection record publicly available, the question is whether the paper trail will produce accountability or simply accumulate.