Emergency Calls Expose Harsh Conditions at Nation’s Largest ICE Detention Center

Over 130 emergency calls from staff at Camp East Montana in Texas reveal disturbing conditions including suicide attempts, medical neglect, and overcrowding at the country's largest immigration detention facility. The facility houses an average of 3,000 detainees daily, with 80% having no criminal record according to ICE data.

EL PASO, Texas — Emergency responders received distress calls from personnel at Camp East Montana in Texas almost daily over a five-month period, with each call documenting incidents of suffering and desperation at America’s biggest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.

The incidents ranged from a detainee weeping after being attacked by another person to someone striking his head against a wall while expressing thoughts of self-harm. One pregnant woman suffered from severe back pain while also battling coronavirus.

“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,” explained Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager from Columbia, Missouri, who was held at the facility for several weeks before being deported to the Netherlands in February. “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison.”

With billions in additional government funding, ICE activities nationwide have disrupted communities, torn apart families, and fostered widespread anxiety as part of President Donald Trump’s promise to remove undocumented immigrants from America.

These widespread arrests have packed detention facilities, forcing ICE to scramble for additional space to hold those who have been captured. Contrary to the “worst of the worst” that Trump pledged to remove, ICE records indicate that 80% of those at the camp had clean criminal histories and were instead caught in an extensive enforcement sweep.

The facility resembles a temporary settlement, featuring six elongated tents positioned across a section of the Chihuahuan Desert near El Paso at Fort Bliss Army base, a location that previously served as an internment site for Japanese Americans during World War II. Within this quickly assembled complex, communal housing units accommodate thousands of immigrants wearing color-coded clothing and plastic footwear.

However, accounts of facility conditions, documented through data and audio recordings from over 100 emergency calls obtained by the Associated Press — along with subsequent interviews and legal documents — paint a troubling picture of overcrowding, inadequate medical care, poor nutrition, and psychological trauma.

Those detained describe a facility where approximately 3,000 individuals live daily in noisy and unsanitary conditions, where illnesses transmit rapidly and rest is difficult to find. The center has been closed to outside visitors until at least March 19 due to a measles outbreak, according to U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar.

Individuals held there face challenges obtaining medications and healthcare, experience significant weight loss due to insufficient food, and fear private security personnel known to use physical force during disturbances. The ceilings of the windowless structures leak during rainfall, and detainees only experience daylight during brief outings once or twice weekly to a small recreational area.

In a written response, a Department of Homeland Security representative who did not identify themselves disputed allegations of poor conditions, stating that Camp East Montana residents receive meals, water, and medical care in a regularly maintained facility.

The department announced Tuesday that standard operations continue at the camp. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that ICE is evaluating a proposal to shut it down.

Similar to other detainees, Ramsingh reported that between cleaning sessions, the living areas, bathrooms, and washing facilities were frequently dirty and bug-infested. He stated that detainees would take food from others because everyone was hungry due to small and sometimes inedible portions, leading to conflicts, and the environment damaged his psychological well-being.

He recalled overhearing a security officer discussing wagers made among staff members about which detainee might next attempt suicide. The guard mentioned contributing $500 to a betting pool, with the entire amount depending on the result. This conversation was especially disturbing, he noted, because he had considered suicide himself.

The DHS representative called Ramsingh’s claims untrue, though offered no details about how the department had attempted to investigate this.

Ramsingh said he learned of the betting pool following January 3, when ICE reported that security personnel responded after a 55-year-old Cuban man attempted self-harm and then used restraints and physical force to control him. A medical examiner determined that Geraldo Lunas Campos’s death was a homicide caused by suffocation.

On January 14, staff reported that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide days after being detained while employed in Minnesota.

Beyond these fatalities, detainees tried to harm themselves while expressing suicidal thoughts on at least six additional occasions that prompted emergency calls, based on records from the City of El Paso obtained through Texas public information law.

DHS stated that the facility’s medical personnel “closely monitors at-risk detainees,” offers mental health services, and works to prevent suicide attempts.

Ramsingh held legal permanent resident status and came to America at age 5 when his Dutch mother wed a U.S. military member. He married an American citizen in 2015.

However, at 45 years old, immigration officials detained him at Chicago O’Hare airport in September after returning from a family visit to the Netherlands. They referenced a drug conviction from when he was 16, for which he had served prison time years earlier. He was among the initial detainees transferred to Camp East Montana.

Additional medical crises included seizures, chest pain, and heart issues, according to the AP’s examination of 130 calls placed after the camp opened in mid-August through January 20.

“It’s not easy in here, psychologically,” explained detainee Roland Kusi, 31, who said he left Cameroon in 2022 to escape political violence. “You just keep thinking, like all the time, you’re thinking and thinking for a solution. … It’s really mentally draining.”

Immigration officials arrested him in Chicago in September during an appointment with his wife, an Army National Guard member, to register their marriage as part of his pursuit of legal residency. He was quickly transported to El Paso.

A Cuban immigrant in his 50s told the AP he asked to receive his medications for diabetes, high blood pressure, and an enlarged prostate during a six-week stay at Camp East Montana but never received them. He spoke anonymously due to fear of retaliation.

In desperation, the man said he once refused to exit living quarters when cleaning staff arrived. An immigration official offered him Ibuprofen and suggested he consider departing for another country.

“He says to me, ‘Look, there are a lot of detainees, we don’t have enough for everyone,'” he recounted. “The man from ICE says to me, ‘OK, why don’t you decide it’s better to leave? Leave for Mexico, go to Cuba. There you can have your medicine, have your things.'”

Fearing for his life, the man agreed to self-deport to Mexico to Ciudad Juárez — separated by the international border from his wife and their 11-year-old son in El Paso.

The detainees, predominantly male, arrive from around the globe. Some have resided in America for decades.

The facility is designed for brief stays before detainees are moved or deported. The typical length of stay is just nine days, according to ICE information, but some individuals have remained for months due to court proceedings or deportation logistics. Ramsingh said he was held there for weeks after his deportation was ordered because ICE misplaced his Dutch passport. His personal items, including gold jewelry, also disappeared.

Detainee advocates and some congressional members have demanded the camp’s closure, citing inhumane treatment.

“This facility should not be operational. It feels like this contractor is reinventing the wheel, and people are losing their lives in their experiment,” stated Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso who has visited the camp multiple times.

She reported that the facility had temporarily reduced its population below 1,900 when she visited last month after measles and tuberculosis cases were identified.

During one visit, a female detainee showed Escobar a small portion of scrambled eggs that was served still frozen in the center. She discovered that detainees had protested after they stopped receiving juice, fruit, and milk with their meals.

Escobar also met with a detainee from Ecuador who reported his arm was broken during a violent arrest by immigration agents in Minnesota. Weeks later, he was still requesting proper medical treatment, and the congresswoman could still see the fractured bones in his forearm protruding under the skin.

“I asked him, have you asked for help? And he said, ‘I ask every day, all day. And the only thing they give me is aspirin,'” she remembered.

The Washington Post reported in September that a mandatory ICE inspection found conditions at the facility violated at least 60 federal standards for immigration detention, but that report has never been made public.

The DHS representative did not explain why but called claims in the Post article false. The representative said ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight recently completed an inspection at Camp East Montana but that report also remains unreleased.

The facility was quickly built last summer after the administration granted a contract now valued at up to $1.3 billion to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a Virginia contractor that had not previously managed an ICE facility.

The company employs subcontractors at Camp East Montana, including security company Akima Global Services and medical contractor Loyal Source.

Escobar demanded an investigation into the contractors, saying they were not providing the services taxpayers are funding.

“People should be moved by the abject cruelty, but if they’re not, I hope they’re moved by the fraud and corruption,” she stated.

Akima did not respond to requests for comment. Loyal Source declined to comment.

Most emergency calls came from the camp’s contract medical personnel. At least 20 incidents were classified as seizures, including some that caused head injuries.

Some injuries resulted from fights between detainees, including a man who reported being kicked in the ear and beaten in his ribs. Another man said he could not move his left eye after being assaulted the previous day.

A woman who was 12 weeks pregnant had not received prenatal care before arriving at Camp East Montana and was experiencing severe pain, emergency calls showed. She was among a small number of emergencies involving women, who comprise less than 10% of the camp’s population.

The calls also revealed staff tensions. A doctor is heard criticizing another employee for attempting to return a suicidal detainee to the detention facility rather than the emergency room, only to realize they had confused two different patients.

Following one detainee’s suicide attempt while in an isolation cell, a doctor could be heard speaking with a disturbed colleague. A security supervisor assured him, the doctor reported, that incidents “like this shouldn’t happen.”