A group of Texas legislators have delivered an urgent warning about the treatment of detainees in the country’s largest immigration detention camp, which sits on an Army base in El Paso.
“We have received numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment of detained individuals at the Camp East Montana migrant detention facility, located within Fort Bliss,” said Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos (D-102), who joined 35 other Democrats in the Texas state House on Tuesday to demand an investigation into the facility.
Camp East Montana was constructed in August as part of the Trump administration's effort to ramp up Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "mass deportation" of immigrants. The selection of Fort Bliss has historical precedent, having previously been used as a site for the internment of Japanese people during World War II.
Using a secretive contract undisclosed to the public, the Pentagon awarded roughly $1.2 billion to a private contractor in July to construct a sprawling tent city to hold around 5,000 people rounded up by ICE.
"Almost immediately upon its opening, detainees, their families, and legal watchdog organizations began bringing attention to conditions that were deemed unsuitable for detainees, even by internal standards set by Immigration and Customs Enforcement," the legislators wrote in a letter to state Rep. Cole Hefner (R-5), who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans Affairs.
During the camp's first 50 days of operation, ICE inspections revealed that it had violated more than 60 federal detention standards. The report, compiled in September, was not released to the public, but was reported on by the Washington Post, which spoke with dozens of detainees.
"On ICE's webpage titled 'Detention Management,' it states that 'detention is non-punitive,'" the legislators wrote Tuesday. "Yet, according to reporting by the Washington Post based on sworn statements from dozens of detainees, the facility, for months, was being run like a prison in a country without standards for oversight, health, or safety for the inmates."
"There were complaints that the toilets and sinks didn't work for the first few weeks after the facility's opening last August. There were complaints logged that, for the first few weeks, the facility didn't adequately feed detainees. They also complained about another violation of ICE standards: the lack of access to telephones for detainees to communicate with family and legal representation," they continued.
Earlier this week, US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who visited the facility unannounced on Friday, disclosed that at least two cases of tuberculosis and 18 cases of Covid-19 had been identified at the facility.
"While the private corporation continues to pocket our tax dollars, it's clear the conditions are only getting worse," she said.
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