{"id":131310,"date":"2026-01-21T02:53:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T02:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/131310\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T02:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T02:53:30","slug":"minnesota-detainees-denied-visitors-after-3rd-death-at-ice-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/131310\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota detainees denied visitors after 3rd death at ICE facility"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by\u00a0El Paso Matters<\/a>. Subscribe to their newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

People attempting to visit detainees from Minnesota at the Fort Bliss immigration holding facility have been turned away in recent days following the death of a Nicaraguan man transferred from Minneapolis, according to multiple sources.<\/p>\n

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, was found unresponsive in his room Jan. 14 at the nation\u2019s largest immigration detention facility, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful,\u00a0the Department of Homeland Security said in a news release Sunday<\/a>. The cause of death is presumed to be suicide, but the official cause of death remains under investigation, DHS officials said.<\/p>\n

Starting the next day and continuing through Sunday, people seeking to visit detainees at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility known as Camp East Montana have been told they can\u2019t see people brought from Minnesota, multiple people told El Paso Matters. They asked not to be identified out of concern they could lose their ability to visit detainees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told by the guards there, \u2018Oh, are the people you\u2019re coming to see from Minnesota?\u2019 And we\u2019re like, \u2018Yes.\u2019 And she\u2019s like, \u2018They\u2019re not allowing the people from Minnesota to have visitors. They\u2019re out in Echo,\u2019 which I\u2019m assuming is part of the camp,\u201d said a person who attempted to visit a detainee from Minnesota on Thursday, less than 18 hours after Diaz\u2019s death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others who regularly visit detainees at the Fort Bliss ICE facility as part of a humanitarian response have also been turned away, including Sunday morning, multiple people told El Paso Matters. Families around the country have relied on the El Paso visitation response to check on people detained at Fort Bliss and other area detention facilities as the Trump administration has taken tens of thousands of people in custody to deport them.<\/p>\n

ICE policies allow visitors to its detention facilities, including at Fort Bliss, but under tight controls. The prohibition on visitors to detainees apprehended in Minnesota did not occur before Thursday, multiple regular visitors to Fort Bliss said.<\/p>\n

DHS officials didn\u2019t respond to questions from El Paso Matters about whether they were denying visitors to detainees from Minnesota held at Fort Bliss or whether the Trump administration was making any changes at the facility after the third death at the facility in seven weeks.<\/p>\n

Diaz was taken into custody Jan. 6 in Minneapolis as the Trump administration launched a massive effort to apprehend undocumented immigrants in Minnesota. Many of those being apprehended in Minnesota have been transported to Fort Bliss to prepare for possible deportation.<\/p>\n

An aggressive ICE enforcement surge in Minnesota \u2014 marked by the fatal shooting of\u00a0Renee Nicole Good<\/a>\u00a0by a federal agent \u2014 has triggered\u00a0large-scale protests<\/a>, legal challenges and a\u00a0federal court order<\/a>\u00a0restricting how immigration agents can engage with protestors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Protesters unfurl a large sheet painted with the preamble to the constitution during a press conference of religious and civil leaders who sought to encourage the El Paso community in the face of escalating ICE raids, Jan. 16, 2026. Credit: Corrie Boudreaux | El Paso Matters<\/p>\n

Faith and civil rights leaders gathered Friday and Saturday in downtown El Paso to condemn what they call an\u00a0\u201calarming escalation\u201d of violent immigration enforcement<\/a>\u00a0and detention following the detainee deaths and immigration raids throughout the borderland.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Weiss of the Texas Civil Rights Project said over the last month or two, detainees\u2019 attorneys have been required to make appointments at least 24 hours in advance to see their clients at the Fort Bliss detention facility. That poses challenges when detainees have medical issues, she told El Paso Matters on Friday after the protest outside the Enrique Moreno County Courthouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the medical issues that I\u2019m hearing \u2014 and I\u2019m not getting emails daily since this week \u2014 for individuals that have severe health needs that are not being met, individuals who are not getting insulin, individuals who have broken body parts that are not being tended to, 24 hours could be enough for some cases, but it may not be for others,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n

Diaz is the third person to die in custody of the immigration enforcement agency in El Paso.<\/p>\n

Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, of Cuba, died at the Fort Bliss facility on Jan. 3. Citing a recorded conversation between a medical examiner\u2019s office employee and Campo\u2019s daughter, the\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0last week reported that the employee stated the cause of death would likely be listed as asphyxia \u2014 and the death would likely be ruled a homicide. The El Paso County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office said Friday that the autopsy report is pending and that it does not release preliminary information.<\/p>\n

DHS in a news release said Campos was attempting to take his own life when security \u201cintervened to save his life,\u201d but that he stopped breathing and lost consciousness during the struggle.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 3,\u00a0Francisco Gaspar-Andres<\/a>, 48, of Guatemala, died in an El Paso hospital after months of illness and hospital visits while detained. ICE said in a news release that medical staff attributed his death to natural liver and kidney failure.<\/p>\n

At least four other\u00a0ICE detainee deaths<\/a>\u00a0have been reported by the agency since January, including a 34-year-old Mexican who died in Georgia; a 46-year-old Cambodian who died in Philadelphia; a 68-year-old Honduran who died in California; and a 42-year-old Honduran who died in Houston.<\/p>\n

The deaths remain under investigation.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration last year initiated a significant expansion of immigration enforcement, using U.S. military bases as detention centers \u2014 with Fort Bliss serving as the flagship facility.<\/p>\n

\"\"A Guatemalan man was moved from California Nov. 17 to this Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility to prepare him for deportation to Guatemala, despite a court order prohibiting that action. A federal judge in El Paso has ordered his return to the United States. Credit: Cindy Ramirez | El Paso Matters<\/p>\n

The $1.2 billion tent facility opened Aug. 1 while it was still being erected and expanded, taking in about 1,000 people within two weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The center averaged about 2,774 detainees per day as of November \u2014 the most than any other detention facility nationwide, according to the\u00a0 latest data available at the\u00a0Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse<\/a>, a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University. More than 65,700 people were reported being under ICE custody nationwide as of November.<\/p>\n

The Fort Bliss center\u2019s capacity is expected to grow to about 5,000 detainees, making it the largest federal detention center for civil detainees in the country.<\/p>\n

The detention center has been under scrutiny since it opened, with an internal ICE inspection report obtained by the\u00a0Washington Post in September showing dozens of violations<\/a>\u00a0of federal immigration detention standards.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0ACLU and other human rights organizations<\/a>\u00a0in early December after a site visit released a scathing report alleging detained immigrants were subject to beatings and sexual abuse by officers, as well as medical neglect, hunger and insufficient food, and denial of access to attorneys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by\u00a0El Paso Matters. Subscribe to their newsletter\u00a0here. People attempting to visit detainees from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,1829,27,5419,6956],"class_list":["post-131310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-ice","tag-texas","tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}