ACLU Sues Largest U.S. Immigration Detention Center Alleging Abuse and Medical Neglect

Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Camp East Montana, the largest immigration detention center in the United States, alleging guard beatings, poor medical care and indiscriminate use of solitary confinement. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups brought the complaint on behalf of four people currently held at the facility.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security as defendants. Camp East Montana opened nine months ago on the outskirts of El Paso in Texas on the Fort Bliss military base.

It is a sprawling tent encampment set up under President Donald Trump's mass-deportation strategy and currently holds more than 2,700 detainees. The lawsuit is the first filed against the facility following three deaths in nine months. A fourth man died shortly after release after being denied chemotherapy for cancer while detained, the complaint said.

A congressionally mandated inspection in February found 49 violations of detention standards, including 11 related to use of force and restraints and five related to medical care. Detainees are confined in windowless enclosures where they suffer physical abuse by guards, abhorrent medical and mental health care, indiscriminate use of solitary confinement and exposure to diseases such as measles and tuberculosis, the lawsuit says.

The death of Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos in January was ruled a homicide by El Paso medical examiners, who cited asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.

Immigration officials initially attributed the death to medical distress before later stating he tried to take his life and died in a struggle with guards. The ACLU lawsuit alleged Lunas Campos was beaten to death after asking for his asthma medication.