A security guard inside the nation’s largest immigration detention center lost a loaded firearm that wasn’t found after two months of searches, according to a damning new report from a federal government watchdog.
In January, a contract security guard at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Camp East Montana in Texas “lost their loaded firearm,” exposing staff, detainees and the public to “significant risk,” according to Tuesday’s report from the Government Accountability Office.
Last August, Donald Trump’s administration inked a $1.3 billion contract to open a 5,000-bed facility at Fort Bliss U.S. Army base in the Chihuahuan Desert, where nearly 3,000 detainees are jailed in six long tent encampments on any given day.
One detainee was allegedly beaten to death by a guard. Detainees were also potentially exposed to tuberculosis after a detainee with the contagious bacterial disease was housed with the general population, according to Tuesday’s report. Other detainees with chronic conditions including HIV and diabetes “did not receive treatment and care” according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement standards, the report found.
The allegations follow growing reports of deteriorating and inhumane conditions inside the facility, including a recent federal lawsuit alleging severe medical neglect, violent use of force from officers, rancid food, unsanitary living conditions and a months-long measles outbreak that has infected more than a dozen people.
There were at least 130 calls to 911 within the first five months of the camp’s creation, a period that included at least two deaths and several suicide attempts.
Last year, the administration awarded Acquisition Logistics a contract worth up to $1.3 billion to build and manage Camp East Montana. The firm does appear to have had prior experience running an ICE detention facility and had never received a federal contract worth more than $16 million, records show.
ICE terminated that contract earlier this year and brought on Amentum Services as the facility’s chief contractor.
The government’s contract with Acquisition Logistics, which was set to run through September 30, 2027, already committed at least $600 million to the company thus far, records show.
“ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody,” a spokesperson for Homeland Security told The Independent in response to questions about the report.
“This new contractor will allow Camp East Montana to continue abiding by the highest detention standards WITH the ability to provide MORE medical care on-site,” the person added.
“This contract also allows more on-site staff and a PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan,” the statement said. “ICE will have even more oversight of the contractors at this facility. Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading.”
The Government Accountability Office says the government’s rushed acquisition of the facility “resulted in millions of dollars of waste” while failing “key detention standards, risking the safety and security of detained noncitizens and staff.”
With ICE’s $38 billion plan to retrofit warehouses across the country into massive jails, “assessing and applying lessons learned from Camp East Montana could help inform future acquisitions,” the report found.
But the report exposed “serious performance and oversight challenges” about conditions at the facility.
In January, a medical examiner ruled a detainee’s death inside the facility a homicide due to asphyxia after the person was allegedly beaten to death by a guard. The facility did not provide a use of force or death report to ICE, and evidence associated with the incident was “missing or destroyed,” the report found.
The contractor also was using a tuberculosis questionnaire — rather than using skin tests — to diagnose detainees, the report found. In November, a tuberculosis patient ended up being detained with the general population.
Detainees also did not comprehensive health assessments after intake, leaving people with chronic conditions without any “treatment plans” while in detention, according to the report.
A recent lawsuit filed by a group of detainees and immigrant advocacy groups alleges “flagrant human rights abuses,” including “egregious physical abuse” and other violations of detainees’ constitutional rights.
Detainees also alleged they have been denied access to legal counsel and are often forced to sign agreements for their removal from the country under threat of violence.
At least three people have died at the facility within the last year.
“There are many good people here who were just looking for a better future,” plaintiff Erik Ivan Rodriguez said in a statement. “I have suffered a lot during my time here, including experiencing physical violence as officials tried to coerce me to sign deportation papers.”
Savannah Kumar, staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, which represents plaintiffs in the suit, called the camp the “epicenter of the administration’s cruel deportation agenda.”
“Camp East Montana is nothing short of a civil rights catastrophe,” added Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “
The watchdog’s report is among only a handful of government accounts of conditions inside ICE detention during the Trump administration, which detains roughly 60,000 people in ICE facilities on any given day as the president seeks to deport 1 million people every year.
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