A third immigrant held at Texas detention center has died

San Antonio demonstrators voice their anger about ICE detentions during a protest earlier this month. Credit: Sanford Nowlin

A third undocumented immigrant has died while in an El Paso Texas detention camp overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this one by apparent suicide, federal authorities confirmed.

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, of Nicaragua, died of a “presumed suicide” on Jan. 14 at Camp East Montana, a massive tent complex at Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army Base in El Paso, ICE officials said in a statement released Sunday. The man’s death remains under investigation.

Diaz, who was arrested during ICE’s crackdown in Minneapolis, is the third person since December to die while detained in Camp East Montana, which was set up last August to accommodate the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Francisco Gaspar-Andres, 48, a Camp East Montana detainee from Guatemala, died Dec. 3 at an El Paso general hospital of what medical staff “attributed to natural liver and kidney failure,” according to an ICE press statement.

A month later, 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos of Cuba, expired after “experiencing medical distress,” the agency said in a separate statement. However, the Washington Post last week reported that Campos’ death likely will be ruled a homicide after a witness at the center maintained they saw guards choke the man to death.

Diaz entered the U.S. in March of 2024, and an immigration judge ordered him removed last summer, according to ICE’s statement.

American Civil Liberties Union officials warned the string of immigrant deaths in federal custody “illustrates a broader pattern of unchecked violence and abuse carried out by ICE against members of our communities on the taxpayer’s dime.” The lockup currently holds more then 2,700 people, making it the nation’s largest immigration detention center, and its located on a site once used to intern people of Japanese descent during World War II.

“The record breaking 32 deaths in ICE custody last year marked the deadliest year for the agency in nearly two decades,” ACLU Senior Policy Counsel Haddy Gassama said in a statement. “These deaths in detention facilities, coupled with the continued escalation of violence by federal agents in our streets, paint a grim picture of what happens when a government agency has an astronomical budget and no accountability. We cannot allow these deaths to become daily occurrences or this violence to continue to be inflicted — and we need Congress to shut down the Fort Bliss detention camp once and for all.”

Late last year, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, sent a letter to the Trump White House raising alarms about Camp East Montana, adding that detainees have raised concerns about rotten food, inconsistent access to medications and lack of access to recreational areas.

“Conditions at Camp East Montana are dangerous and inhumane; they have been since the facility opened at the beginning of August (when it was still an active construction site), and only seem to be deteriorating,” Escobar said in the letter — reportedly the third she’s sent administration officials and received no reply.

“It is increasingly clear that it is not a safe nor professionally managed facility. Continuing to detain people at Camp East Montana means continually exposing people to risks from unhygienic conditions, poorly built facilities, and a general lack of security and reliable management.”

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A third immigrant held at Texas detention center has died

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