The first lawsuit relating to the largest immigration detention facility in the US was filed early on Saturday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), accusing the agency of “dire” conditions that severely violate the human and constitutional rights of those locked up at the camp in Texas. A clutch of legal organizations is suing via a class-action complaint, listing four detainees as plaintiffs for themselves and on behalf of all those currently held as civil detainees at Camp East Montana or who will be held there in the future. The facility is a sprawling tent camp in the desert on El Paso’s Fort Bliss military base, where the federal government has confined immigrants since last August, when it swiftly erected the tents. The Guardian reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, and to ICE for comment.
Late Saturday, a DHS spokesperson replied with a lengthy statement denying all accusations that proper medical care and food had been withheld from detainees, disputing there had been a spike in deaths in ICE custody, and asserting “claims that there are ‘inhumane’ conditions at Camp East Montana are categorically false. No detainees are being beaten or abused.” “ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens,” said the spokesperson, who did not provide their name. “As of March 12, there are no active measles cases at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, Texas,” the spokesperson added. “Previously, on March 3, 2026, the Texas Department of Health confirmed active measles infections of 14 detainees at Camp East Montana in Texas.
ICE Health Services Corps immediately took steps to quarantine and control further spread and infection.” “In the ten months that it has been operational, the facility has become notorious for flagrant human rights abuses that people endure during their detention – they are confined to windowless enclosures in tents and suffer egregious physical abuse ,” the lawsuit alleges. It continues to allege that conditions include: “Abhorrent medical and mental health care, including for people with chronic conditions like cancer and HIV, indiscriminate use of solitary confinement to punish and silence victims of guard abuse, and other flagrant constitutional violations, including exposure to measles, tuberculosis, and other diseases. Not even a year in, there already have been three reported deaths at Camp East Montana.” The class-action complaint was filed in federal court in El Paso, Texas, Akari Angye, Navdeep, Erik Ivan Rodriguez Flores and ZOR (a pseudonym) “on their own behalf and on behalf of others similarly situated” at the ICE detention facility. The plaintiffs are suing the DHS and its secretary, Markwayne Mullin; ICE and its acting director, Todd Lyons; the acting director of the ICE field office in El Paso, Marisa Flores, and the assistant field office director there, Angel Garite; the Pentagon; and the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
With an average of 2,505 people in custody on any given day so far this fiscal year, and with a capacity to hold up to 5,000 people, Camp East Montana has quickly become emblematic of Donald Trump’s rapid expansion of immigration detention – and the sudden surge in deaths that has followed in facilities across the US, including a significant number of suicides. “Camp East Montana is part of a broader effort by … ICE to ramp up enforcement across the country, using increasingly aggressive tactics, while simultaneously expanding its detention network, pouring tens of billions of taxpayer dollars into new facilities,” the lawsuit states. It adds: “At the same time, Defendant ICE has gutted the government watchdog agencies that are supposed to ensure minimally adequate conditions in those facilities while also preventing members of Congress from conducting statutorily authorized visits.” DHS spokespersons have previously denied allegations made about poor conditions at Camp East Montana, which have been well-documented. In relation to the poor quality and quantity of food, an inappropriate level of medical care, a dangerous environment, and inadequate access to lawyers, the DHS has said that all such accusations are “unequivocally false”.
Plaintiff Gerald Akari Angye is originally from Cameroon and said he had experienced torture in the past in the west African country. But he expressed shock at his conditions in detention at Camp East Montana, in a statement released on his behalf that filed the lawsuit on Saturday. “I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment today, I still have a brace on my hands and wrist. I am in pain and I am scared to be here,” he said.