Immigration

A Texas Immigrant Detention Center Is a 'Human Rights Disaster,' Civil Rights Groups Say in Report

Camp East Montana is the largest immigration detention center in the nation. It's also plagued by brutality and neglect, according to a string of internal and external investigations.

C.J. Ciaramella | 7.16.2026 1:00 AM

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Dozens of detainees at the country's largest immigration detention center told investigators with civil rights groups that they're subjected to beatings, medical neglect, malnutrition, and inhumane conditions.

In a joint report released today, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say that the abuses described in interviews with 71 people being held at Camp East Montana, a privately operated immigration detention center inside the Fort Bliss Army Base near El Paso, Texas, violate national and international human rights law.

"People during our interviews described unbearable cruelty and international human rights violations," Angélica César Rosales, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and the report's author, says. "They came forward and reported life-threatening medical neglect. They told us they were forced to live in filth, that they were beaten by masked guards, and that they had, at different points in their detention, access to communication with the outside world completely cut off. In some cases, that may amount to enforce disappearance under international law."

The report is the latest in a string of human rights reports, news investigations, and internal government audits that have found rampant abuses inside Camp East Montana, which has a current capacity to hold 5,000 detainees.

Most notoriously, Camp East Montana is the site of the January 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially........

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