Overview
- Late Friday the ACLU of Texas, the ACLU, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Human Rights Watch and partner lawyers filed a federal suit in the Western District of Texas asking a judge to bar ICE from operating Camp East Montana and to certify a class of current and future detainees.
- The complaint lists concrete abuses including denied or delayed medical care, violent uses of force by officers, excessive solitary confinement, spoiled or inadequate food, overflowing sewage and hazardous dust exposure from tent walls.
- A congressionally mandated ICE Office of Detention Oversight inspection in February found 49 violations of detention standards with several findings tied to use of force and medical care, and the suit uses that report as a central piece of evidence.
- Named plaintiffs describe severe personal harms: one says he was beaten and hospitalized, another reports prolonged solitary confinement, and the filings say at least three people have died at the facility, including one death ruled a homicide by the El Paso medical examiner.
- ICE and DHS say the camp meets federal standards and have replaced some contractors, but the lawsuit could force court-ordered changes or a shutdown and adds legal and political pressure over wider concerns about oversight of large tented detention sites.