ACLU of Texas, Partners Condemn Third Death at Camp East Montana and Demand Immediate Closure of the Detention Camp

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristi Gross, ACLU of Texas, [email protected]
Ivonne Rodriguez, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, [email protected]
Alan Lizarraga, Border Network for Human Rights, [email protected]
Sandra Ramirez,Estrella del Paso, [email protected]
Stephanie Drenka, Texas Civil Rights Project, [email protected]

EL PASO, TEXAS – A coalition of immigrant rights, legal advocacy, and faith-based organizations across Texas and New Mexico condemns the death of Victor Manuel Diaz while in immigration custody at Camp East Montana. Camp East Montana is a detention center located on Fort Bliss army base in El Paso. Diaz is the third death connected to this detention center, underscoring a deadly pattern of abuse, neglect, and impunity that has defined the facility since its opening.

The death of Diaz comes amid national outrage following investigative reporting that confirmed that Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old father detained at Camp East Montana, died from asphyxiation after guards choked him to death. It’s been reported that federal authorities subsequently are threatening to deport key witnesses to the incident, raising grave concerns about accountability and efforts to suppress evidence of abuse at the facility.

Camp East Montana was rushed into operation in August 2025 despite explicit warnings from members of Congress and advocates that the facility would result in serious harm and loss of life. The camp is built on land historically used to detain people of Japanese descent during World War II and now cages more than 2,700 people, making it the largest immigration detention center in the country.

The coalition calls on the Trump administration to immediately reverse course and demands that Congress act to end this cycle of abuse and impunity. Camp East Montana must be closed without delay, and a full, independent investigation into all detention facilities must begin now. Failure to act will continue to cost lives.

Quotes from coalition partners can be found below:

“We grieve the three lives already lost at this ICE detention center located on a U.S. military base," said Savannah Kumar (she/they), attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “For months, we have interviewed people detained at Camp East Montana, who bravely spoke on the dangers they have experienced: beatings by officials, the denial of medical care, housing areas flooded with excrement, and inedible food that caused illness. Our letter alerted the government to conditions at a breaking point. We continue to demand, urgently, that ICE and the Department of Defense stop this cruelty by ending the detention of immigrants at Ft. Bliss before additional lives are lost.”

“Camp East Montana was built to make people disappear, strip them of their rights, and warehouse human beings out of public view here in our border community,” said Marisa Limón Garza (she/her), executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. “This is the third death at this facility, and each one shows the deadly cost of using detention as the default response to migration. No one should die for seeking safety, dignity, or a future for their family. Camp East Montana is killing people, and it must be shut down immediately.”

“We are outraged and heartbroken by the death of a third migrant at Camp East Montana. The three individuals who have died since August while detained were preventable deaths and reflect the dangerous and inhumane conditions migrants are being forced to endure,” said Melissa M. Lopez (she/her), executive director of Estrella del Paso.“No one seeking safety, dignity, and opportunity should lose their life in government custody. Estrella del Paso calls for immediate accountability and transparency to ensure human rights violations and deaths at Camp East Montana cease immediately. Ft. Bliss has a long and painful history of being used to carry out human rights atrocities - Japanese internment camps, the detention of unaccompanied children, and now immigrants. The Administration cannot continue to act with impunity and reckless disregard while people suffer and die behind locked gates. Every day that Camp East Montana remains open, thousands of parents, children, and individuals fleeing violence and poverty are placed at risk of losing their lives for seeking survival. We grieve the lives lost and stand in solidarity with their loved ones. Migrants are not disposable. They are human beings deserving of care, dignity, and protection. Camp East Montana should be shut down immediately. Anything less is a moral failure.”

“From the moment this makeshift mass detention camp opened, we warned that it would lead to grave abuse, neglect, and the systematic violation of fundamental human and civil rights,” said Fernando García (he/him), executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR). “In recent weeks, our deepest fears have been realized through the unnecessary and preventable loss of human life. The deaths of Víctor Manuel Díaz, Geraldo Díaz Campos, and Francisco Gaspar Cristóbal Andrés are not isolated incidents, they are the predictable outcome of a system that treats human beings as disposable in the name of an unaccountable and irrational enforcement strategy. This is a moral failure. We call on Congress to act with conscience, decency and humanity by fully investigating the conditions people are being forced to endure and by immediately shutting down Camp East Montana.”

“Three lives have now been lost at Camp East Montana in Fort Bliss due to irresponsible detention practices this year,” said Rochelle M. Garza (she/her), president of the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP). “They were sons, brothers, and fathers whose loved ones are never going to see them again. The federal government must be held accountable for these actions. As we see increased ICE and CBP enforcement continue to result in tragedy, the Texas Civil Rights Project calls on Congress to investigate the deaths of these men and immediately shut down Camp East Montana for the safety of all.”

“It is clear that Fort Bliss Camp East Montana is not a place of safety, justice, or due process. We mourn the lives lost in detention and hold their families and loved ones in our hearts, knowing these deaths were preventable,” said Miles Tokunow (any pronouns used with respect), executive director, Contigo Immigrant Justice. “Instead of cages and deaths, we need community-based alternatives that honor human dignity, provide access to legal counsel, and keep families together. We call for the immediate closure of Fort Bliss Camp East Montana and an end to the expansion of punitive detention that endangers lives.”

“Camp East Montana needs to be closed immediately, and the community members detained there given urgent medical and legal access,” said Teague Gonzalez (she/they), co-executive director at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center. “The human rights abuses taking place in this center are widespread. We cannot continue to allow our neighbors to be treated inhumanely. How many of our brothers and sisters need to die?”

“The third death at Camp East Montana is a tragedy that serves as an urgent warning to us all. When the government can haul anyone off the streets, anywhere in the country, and place them in a deadly detention camp, no one is safe,” said Kristin Etter (she/her), director of policy and legal services at Texas Immigration Law Council. “This should outrage anyone who values life, liberty, and human dignity and calls for immediate independent review, oversight and accountability.”

In December 2025, human rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, ACLU of New Mexico, BNHR, Estrella del Paso, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, Texas Immigration Law Council, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, TCRP, and Human Rights Watch demanded an end to immigration detention at Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss, citing a documented pattern of abuse including beatings, sexual violence, coerced deportations, medical neglect, chronic hunger, and denial of access to legal counsel.