Detention Camp Death Ruled Homicide After Guards Restrained Man
A Cuban migrant's death at a Texas detention facility has been ruled a homicide, and the details coming out now are a lot different from what ICE said initially.
Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died at the Camp East Montana facility in El Paso on January 3. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he experienced "medical distress" and didn't offer much else. The autopsy report paints a different picture.
Lunas Campos died of asphyxia caused by compression of his neck and torso. His body showed signs of struggle—abrasions on his chest and knees, hemorrhages on his neck. Witnesses saw him "become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement," according to the autopsy.
The Department of Homeland Security told CNN that Lunas Campos "violently resisted staff" who tried to intervene while he was attempting suicide. A witness told the Associated Press something else entirely: Lunas Campos was handcuffed with at least five guards holding him down. One guard put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he went unconscious.
A homicide ruling doesn't automatically mean someone intended to kill him. It just means another person caused his death, Lee Ann Grossberg, an independent forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy, told The Washington Post.
The Official Version
ICE's first account was light on specifics. Lunas Campos got put in a segregated unit that day after getting "disruptive while in line for medication" and refusing to go back to his dorm. Later, staff "observed him in distress." They called medical personnel and EMS. He was pronounced dead shortly after 10 p.m.
After the autopsy findings came out Wednesday, a DHS spokesperson said the man was attempting suicide and security staff "immediately intervened to save his life."
"Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life. During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness."
Lunas Campos had been in federal custody since July, arrested in Rochester, New York, during an immigration operation. He got transferred to the El Paso facility in September.
He'd been in the U.S. since 1996 and had racked up criminal convictions over the years—10 of them between 1998 and 2009, including selling a controlled substance, armed robbery, and sexual contact with a child under 11. A judge ordered him removed from the country in 2005, but he never got deported because the government couldn't get the travel documents.
Three Deaths in Recent Weeks
Lunas Campos is the third person to die at Camp East Montana recently.
Francisco Gaspar-Andres, 48, from Guatemala, got medical care multiple times after his September detainment for alcohol withdrawal, acid reflux, flu symptoms, and high blood pressure. He was admitted to an El Paso hospital in November with low sodium levels. His health kept declining until he died December 3. ICE said medical staff attributed it to liver and kidney failure, though there's no official cause of death yet.
Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, from Nicaragua, was found unconscious in his room on January 14. EMS pronounced him dead shortly after arriving. ICE called it a "presumed suicide" but said the official cause is still under investigation. Diaz had been detained in Minneapolis earlier that month for an immigration violation.
Not Everyone's Convinced Things Are Fine
Camp East Montana has been taking heat from Texas Democratic lawmakers and the ACLU over the deaths, how migrants are being treated, and what conditions are like inside.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar called conditions at the camp "dangerous and inhumane" in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons last month. She cited Gaspar-Andres's death as one of several concerns about hygiene and safety.
The ACLU in Texas wants the camp shut down. They said Lunas Campos's death looks like part of a "broader pattern of unchecked violence and abuse carried out by ICE against members of our communities on the taxpayer's dime."
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin shot back in September, saying claims of "inhumane" conditions at ICE detention centers are "categorically false."
"All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members," McLaughlin said. She added that she believes the facility provides "the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives."
Camp East Montana is a tent facility at Fort Bliss that's expected to become the largest detention facility in the country. The $1.2 billion operation is run by a private contractor.
ICE said it's "committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments" and that "comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay."
The homicide ruling is going to bring a lot more attention to what's happening inside that facility.
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