Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, acquired a nasty reputation in the mere eight months it’s been open. Since July of last year, three detainees have died within the massive facility. Now the Trump administration is reportedly shuttering its operations.
In January, a Cuban immigrant’s death was later ruled a homicide by asphyxiation. According to the autopsy, agents held the 55-year-old man down with one of the workers placing his arm around the father of four’s neck until he lost consciousness. In the same month, a 36-year-old died of a “presumed” suicide.
Protesters gather outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional field office, on Sept. 16, 2025, in Burlington, Massachusetts.
A month prior, a 48-year-old man was rushed to the hospital where he died of reported liver and kidney failure.
But the tent facility, still in the process of being built with a projected end date in 2027, according to the Washington Post, had reported issues of food shortages and lack of medical care as well. The outlet’s investigation found that, from an internal report, that the facility violated over 60 federal standards for immigrant detention.
This is hardly a win for human rights, however, given ICE facilities across the nation have a laundry list of abuse accusations as well. Even more reports are coming out about the egregious conditions immigrant children are enduring at these facilities.
Since President Donald Trump took office again and enacted his mass deportation plan, a record number of immigrants have died in ICE custody, marking the highest the U.S. has seen in the past two decades. Nine people have died in 2026 at the time of publication.
Trucks leave the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, on Aug. 28, 2025, in Collier County, Florida.
And while El Paso’s facility might be closing, Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill greenlit a whopping $38.3 billion for ICE to throw toward building new processing facilities in the years to come—and they’ve already started.
As previously reported, Republicans are already pushing back on the Trump administration’s attempt to build ICE facilities in their backyards. The new facilities expected to come in 2026 will complement the already tattered Alligator Alcatraz and Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer.” One of the warehouses they’re eyeing is just 15 miles south of Camp East Montana.
Then again, facility conditions alone might not be to blame for the lives lost. The culture emanating from the administration’s deportation agenda has cultivated violence, while acting first and asking questions later.From a “protect the homeland” standpoint, ICE and other federal agents have been masked, armed, untrained, and positioned as protectors of dangerous infiltrators. And evidence suggesting a racist mindset behind arrests and altercations makes things even more clear.
So while the disastrous facility might be closing its flimsy, half-built doors—more are being built in its place.