New Mexico Congressman Gabe Vasquez is demanding answers and accountability over reports of widespread civil rights violations at one of the Trump administration’s immigrant detention facilities. 

Vasquez on Monday visited Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, following an internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement report that listed more than four dozen examples in which the agency violated national standards for detainees.

“The conditions that I saw inside the detention facility today are beneath our American values,” Vasquez said. “We heard concerns regarding withholding of medical care. They said you practically have to be down on the ground, dying, choking before you receive medical care.”

The largest facility being operated by ICE, Camp East Montana is a conglomerate of massive tents where immigrants targeted in Donald Trump’s racist crackdown are being housed. Last month, ICE replaced the lead contractor operating Camp East Montana after concerns about civil rights violations swirled around the facility for months.

The new report, which came via ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, cites 22 violations of standards regarding “use of force and restraints,” including guards failing to document use of force against detainees and failing to preserve evidence, including video, of officials using force. It also cites five examples of violations involving “medical care,” including officials failing to adequately quarantine or test people who showed signs of tuberculosis and failing to test some detainees for HIV. The report found the facility “has not implemented a coordinated, multidisciplinary team approach to responding to sexual abuse and assault.”

Activists and human rights experts have been sounding the alarm about conditions at Camp East Montana for quite some time. The facility seems like the Trump administration’s take on former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s infamous “Tent City,” which previously garnered comparisons to a concentration camp.

NPR reports three of the 25 deaths at ICE facilities since last October have occurred there. Vasquez said Monday he’d heard of a fourth death at the facility, but that ICE officials wouldn’t confirm that. Among the three confirmed deaths is that of 55-year-old Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death the medical examiner ruled a homicide by asphyxia after federal officials claimed it was a suicide attempt.

Abuses at Camp East Montana not mentioned in the report include allegations from multiple people who said officials “grabbed” and “crushed” their testicles in incidents that apparently led, in at least one case, to hospitalization.

Asked to comment on those and other allegations coming out of Camp East Montana three months ago, then-DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin reportedly told The Guardian that detainees had full access to legal counsel, hygiene facilities, dietitian-certified meals and comprehensive medical attention.

“No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States,” she added. “Get a grip.”

CORRECTION (April 8, 2026, 4:30 p.m. ET): This article previously misidentified the state that Vasquez represents. He is a representative from New Mexico.

The post After ICE admits to violations at Camp East Montana, a Democrat wants answers appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.