(Washington, DC) – Human rights teams right now urged US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to finish immigration detention at Camp East Montana, a large tent camp on the Fort Bliss army base in El Paso, Texas. In their letter, advocates summarized accounts of horrific situations, together with beatings and sexual abuse by officers towards detained immigrants, beatings and coercive threats to compel deportation to 3rd nations, medical neglect, starvation and inadequate meals, and denial of significant entry to counsel, amongst different rights violations. The letter comes simply weeks after Representative Veronica Escobar warned that folks detained at Fort Bliss got foul-tasting consuming water, rotten meals, and insufficient well being care.
The letter follows months of interviews with greater than 45 detained individuals at Fort Bliss and is accompanied by 16 sworn declarations by immigrants detained on the facility. Numerous detained individuals informed attorneys officers have engaged in a widespread and unreasonable sample and observe of extreme drive, together with the usage of abusive sexual contact by officers when using drive.
One detained teenager, utilizing the pseudonym “Samuel,” informed attorneys that he was overwhelmed by officers so severely he sustained accidents throughout his physique, misplaced consciousness, and needed to be taken to a hospital in an ambulance. The letter relays Samuel’s account that “[his] right front tooth broke from the force of being slammed to the ground, and as Samuel attests, one officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” while another “pressured his fingers deep into my ears.” Samuel went on to say that while he was feeling “dizzy” and was “preventing to stay acutely aware,” an officer laughed at him for having a chipped tooth after being slammed to the ground and said he was “like a bit woman.” Samuel mentioned that weeks after the beating, harm to Samuel’s left ear is so extreme that he now has hassle listening to.
In their letter, the teams additionally reiterate their calls to right away cease third nation removals to which they don’t have any real ties. Interviewees mentioned that at Fort Bliss, the prospect of such removals has taken on a very abusive character. People detained attested that officers at Fort Bliss have overwhelmed detained individuals and used the specter of violence, legal prices, and imprisonment in makes an attempt to coerce non-Mexican immigrants held at Fort Bliss to cross the border into the Mexican desert.
Ignacio, a Cuban immigrant held at Fort Bliss, attested in a sworn declaration that officers informed him that he was going to be deported to Mexico. Ignacio informed attorneys that, “the guards hit my head” and “slammed it against the wall approximately ten times.” He additionally mentioned that officers grabbed and crushed his testicles between their fingers, and that quickly after, officers handcuffed Ignacio and roughly 20 different individuals, positioned them on a bus, and drove them to the border, the place they have been knowledgeable they might get off the bus and cross into Mexico. Ignacio added that officers informed them, “If we don’t want to go to Mexico, then we would either be sent to a jail cell in El Salvador or Africa.” Ignacio can be utilizing a pseudonym to guard his identification.
The letter, signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Mexico, ACLU of Texas, Estrella del Paso, Human Rights Watch, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, and Texas Civil Rights Project, follows widespread media protection detailing abusive situations. In September 2025, a Washington Post report famous a leaked inner ICE inspection discovered the Fort Bliss facility violated over 60 federal detention requirements within the first 50 days of its opening.
The Trump administration swiftly opened the sprawling tent camp in August 2025, regardless of warnings from members of Congress and advocates that the power could be a humanitarian catastrophe. The facility is positioned on the army base previously used to intern individuals of Japanese descent throughout World War II and at present holds over 2,700 individuals, making it the nation’s largest immigration detention heart.
Source: Human Rights Watch