NPR\u2019s April 3 investigation<\/a>, it is both the country\u2019s largest detention center and one of its deadliest.<\/p>\nThree deaths, 49 violations<\/h1>\n
Out of 25 people who have died in ICE detention since October, three were held at Camp East Montana. The first, Francisco Gaspar-Andres, a Guatemalan national, died of kidney failure in December after two weeks of hospitalization. A month later, Cuban national Geraldo Luna Campos died while in detention, with DHS initially citing \u201cmedical distress.\u201d The third death occurred on January 14, when Victor Manuel Diaz, a Nicaraguan national, died by suicide according to DHS. His family disputes the circumstances. \u201cWhen we talked to Victor after he had been detained by ICE in Minnesota and brought to Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, we were not worried because Victor would just be returned to Nicaragua to us,\u201d the family said in a statement to NPR. \u201cLittle did we know it was the last time we would ever hear his voice.\u201d <\/p>\n
In February, ICE inspectors documented 49 violations of federal detention standards at the facility \u2014 including inadequate medical care and failure by staff to \u201caccurately document required checks to prevent significant self-harm and suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The private contractor problem<\/h2>\n
Acquisition Logistics LLC \u2014 a company with no prior experience running a detention facility \u2014 secured a $1.3 billion federal contract to manage Camp East Montana. It did not respond to NPR\u2019s questions about detainee conditions or its management of the facility. DHS said in a statement that it inherited the contract from the Department of War. The same DHS that is being positioned to receive and cross-reference sensitive voter data through its SAVE system is also the agency overseeing ICE, and the 49 violations at Camp East Montana raise direct questions about whether the department has the operational capacity to responsibly manage the data and human oversight obligations it is accumulating simultaneously. <\/p>\n
Former detainee Owen Ramsingh, speaking from the Netherlands after being deported in March, told NPR he personally witnessed guards betting on which detainee would die by suicide. \u201cThis is so screwed up that you\u2019re trying to bet on our lives, you know, with these other officers thinking this s- \u2013 \u2013 is funny,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A transparency failure with documented consequences<\/h2>\n
More than 45 people interviewed by the ACLU at Camp East Montana described \u201calarming conditions of confinement and repeated instances of coercion, physical force, and threats,\u201d the civil liberties group said in a December letter to ICE. DHS said in response that \u201cstaff abides by strict prevention and intervention protocol\u201d when signs of self-harm are detected.<\/p>\n
The gap between that statement and the 49 violations documented by federal inspectors in February represents exactly the kind of institutional opacity that critics argue becomes systemic when government agencies \u2014 and the private contractors they empower \u2014 operate without meaningful accountability for how personal data and human custody are managed. The record death pace at Camp East Montana has not yet produced any public disciplinary action against Acquisition Logistics or the facility\u2019s current operators.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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