{"id":189283,"date":"2026-03-04T01:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T01:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/189283\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T01:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T01:39:07","slug":"14-measles-cases-reported-at-el-paso-ice-tent-camp-as-democrats-call-for-its-shuttering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/189283\/","title":{"rendered":"14 measles cases reported at El Paso ICE tent camp as Democrats call for its shuttering"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 14 active measles cases have been reported at a troubled El Paso tent camp holding more than 3,000 immigrants, Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar<\/a> said Tuesday. Another 112 people in the facility are being isolated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The outbreak has closed the detention center to visitors, reaffirming what Escobar and advocates call an \u201cunfolding humanitarian crisis\u201d at Camp East Montana located on the Fort Bliss U.S. Army base. It comes after a spate of tuberculosis and COVID-19 outbreaks<\/a> there over the past month and mounting complaints by lawmakers and advocates about the \u201cdeteriorating\u201d conditions there.<\/p>\n

Escobar said the outbreak also poses risk for the greater El Paso community, adding in a statement that detainees with measles were being quarantined at local hospitals. In addition to the thousands held at the camp, she said there are \u201clikely hundreds of El Pasoans employed there, along with 56 members of the Texas National Guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, during more than half a dozen oversight visits to the camp, including as recently as last week, Escobar said that she has never seen personnel wearing masks to prevent the spread of such highly infectious diseases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Escobar\u2019s statement came after the City of El Paso Department of Public Health confirmed<\/a> 13 measles cases at the ICE facility and four additional cases within the city last week, declining to offer any details.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cases within the community involved four people in their 20s and 30s with unknown vaccination status, although around 98% of El Paso County residents are vaccinated against measles, according to city officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for the city and its public health department did not respond to questions Tuesday, including how the four in the community contracted the disease. But last week, city spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta told The Texas Tribune that the measles cases inside the detention center and in the community are unrelated. She and health department officials have not responded to questions to explain their contact tracing.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, Chris Van Deusen, deferred questions about the measles cases in the detention facility to the Department of Homeland Security and the cases in the community to the local health department. The latter is a stark departure<\/a> from last year\u2019s historic statewide measles outbreak that infected 762 people; in that outbreak, the state agency for months provided weekly updates on new cases.<\/p>\n

Van Deusen wrote in an email that the \u201cstate\u2019s role inside federal facilities is very limited,\u201d but that typically his agency coordinates with local health departments if they need assistance on measles in particular, which is highly contagious. The agency in January responded to measles cases<\/a> at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, the nation\u2019s only ICE facility holding children and their parents, including by providing vaccine doses. Camp East Montana houses only adults.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to detailed questions about the El Paso outbreak or Escobar\u2019s claims on Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement last month, a DHS spokesperson defended<\/a> its handling of medical care at Camp East Montana, saying, \u201cThis is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States,\u201d wrote the spokesperson, who did not provide their name. \u201cGet a grip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measles, which is particularly dangerous to unvaccinated children, pregnant women and immunocompromised adults, has a long incubation period, said Peter Hotez, a leading infectious disease expert and dean for Baylor College of Medicine\u2019s National School of Tropical Medicine in Houston. A person with measles can spread it to as many as 18 other unvaccinated individuals on average and they remain contagious for about four days before and after the rash appears. Investigations are necessary to understand how the infections happened, Hotez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether the federal government has conducted any such inquiry into the measles cases at either the Dilley center or the El Paso camp. DHS has not responded to multiple questions about its contact tracing and handling of the infectious diseases. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson also directed questions to DHS. The vaccination coverage at either ICE facility is also not clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Escobar and lawyers said the latest public health \u201ccrisis\u201d at Camp East Montana underscores the mounting complaints of poor medical care there. Detainees with serious medical issues are often without services, which advocates said can be non-existent even for those with urgent needs. Pregnant women and those with diabetes and HIV have been unable to obtain care. Some, including a man with a broken foot, have been on the waiting list for medical help since September, advocates said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been nothing but crisis after crisis inside the walls of this tent city,\u201d Escobar said Tuesday. \u201cI again renew my call for DHS to shut down Camp East Montana and for the Department of Justice to investigate the contractor for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter <\/a>to DHS last week, Escobar and more than two dozen Democrats said that the administration should close <\/a>the tent camp, which is currently the largest ICE facility in the country. Constructed in a record two months<\/a> after a $1.2 billion contract was granted to Acquisition Logistics, a Virginia-based company with no listed related experience<\/a>, it is viewed as a model<\/a> for more than two dozen ICE facilities the government plans to convert into detention centers across the country, including several in Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Acquisition Logistics and two of its contractors in charge of detention and medical care at Camp East Montana did not immediately respond to questions or could not be reached Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the safety of everyone at the facility, for an end to abuses to detainees, and for fiscal responsibility to the American people,\u201d Escobar and other lawmakers wrote, \u201cthe site cannot continue to operate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than 45 people detained at Camp East Montana have alleged<\/a> abuse and serious injuries to attorneys, according to a letter<\/a> the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups sent to DHS and ICE supervisors in December. Those allegations included a teen hospitalized after he accused staff of slamming him to the ground and beating him. The detention staffers blocked the security cameras, he said, and \u201cgrabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Separately, in a span of six weeks starting in mid-December, three people have died at the camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first death<\/a>, 48-year-old Francisco Gaspar-Andres, appeared to \u201cpartially be the result of poor medical care by staff,\u201d Escobar and other lawmakers wrote. They argued that despite seeking medical attention from facility staff for \u201cincreasingly serious symptoms,\u201d Gaspar-Andres was only hospitalized \u201conce his condition had severely deteriorated.\u201d His family reiterated such complaints of poor medical care to the Tribune.<\/p>\n

A month later, 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos died <\/a>at the facility after ICE officials initially attributed his death to \u201cmedical distress.\u201d The agency later said it was a suicide attempt. But the local medical examiner ruled it a homicide<\/a> involving staff \u2013 an unusual development that former ICE officials said<\/a> has not occurred in at least 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Six detainees described<\/a> in federal court statements that Lunas Campos begged for days to receive his asthma medication. Detention staff refused and threatened him with solitary confinement, inmates said. After Lunas Campos was dragged in shackles to an isolation unit, detainees recalled \u201cwhat sounded like the slamming of a person\u2019s body against the floor or a wall.\u201d They said they heard him gasp that he could no longer breathe. Then, \u201csilence.\u201d ICE last week quietly updated<\/a> Lunas Campos\u2019 cause of death, finding it the result of staff\u2019s \u201cspontaneous use of force\u201d<\/a> to prevent him \u201cfrom harming himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eleven days after Lunas Camps died, 36-year-old Victor Manuel Diaz<\/a> marked the tent camp\u2019s third fatality<\/a>. Guards told emergency responders that they found the Nicaraguan man with pants tied around his neck, a characterization of suicide that his family has disputed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Diaz\u2019s body was sent to a U.S. Army hospital<\/a>, rather than the local medical examiner, where a military spokesperson said that the agency would not make his autopsy public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least 14 active measles cases have been reported at a troubled El Paso tent camp holding more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,1562,1724,287,1564,293],"class_list":["post-189283","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-health-care","tag-immigration","tag-politics","tag-state-government","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189283","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=189283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}