Officers at the large immigration detention camp located at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas are allegedly mistreating detainees, with accusations including beatings, sexual abuse and clandestine deportations of non-Mexican nationals into Mexico, according to a coalition of local and national US civil rights organizations.
In a 19-page letter, addressed to senior government officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and Fort Bliss military command, the coalition accuses officers at the immigration detention facility on the base, called Camp East Montana, of being “in violation of agency policies and standards, as well as statutory and constitutional protections”.
The advocates called for the immediate closure of the camp, where more than 2,700 detainees are being held in a complex of tents.
“In light of these abuses, we urge the end to detention of immigrants at Fort Bliss,” said the letter signed by eight organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Humans Rights Watch, Estrella del Paso, the Texas Civil Rights Project and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.
The letter was addressed to ICE acting director Todd Lyons and others and copied to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office of inspector general and the Senate armed forces committee.
ICE officials in El Paso directed media inquiries to DHS, which denied all the allegations.
“Any claim that there are ‘inhumane’ conditions at ICE detention centers are categorically false. No detainees are being beaten or abused,” said the DHS assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, in a written statement.
The letter relies on sworn testimony from over 45 detainees, some of them describing how masked agents told them to “jump” the barrier, or wall, on the US-Mexico border to cross from the US into Mexico, under threat of imprisonment if they did not.
According to the letter, ICE officers have been taking some non-Mexican nationals, specifically asylum seekers from Cuba and Guatemala, shackling them and transporting them an hour west from El Paso to the desert border crossing at Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Once at the border, detainees gave accounts to advocates of being met by masked officers, who allegedly ordered them to climb the border wall and cross into Mexico, bypassing all legal deportation proceedings and third-country agreements.
“The masked people sometimes beat on people to get them to jump the wall even if they don’t want to,” said “Eduardo,” a Cuban detainee ordered to be deported and cited under the pseudonym in the letter. He alleged that officers told him if he did not cross to Mexico, he would be charged with federal crimes and sent to a prison in “Africa or El Salvador”.
McLaughlin warned that unauthorized border crossers face potential removal to various nations, not just their home countries.
“If you break our laws and come to our country illegally, you could end up in any number of third countries,” she said. “Our message is clear: criminals are not welcome in the United States. These third-country agreements, which ensure due process under the US constitution, are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.”
The letter was first reported by the Washington Post on Monday, with the newspaper saying it had “independently obtained internal ICE records verifying that the four Cubans resisted removal on or around the dates they said the events took place” while adding that the Post “could not verify other details about the allegations, because the detainees had little means to document their experiences”. It also cited lack of media access to the camp at the huge army base in El Paso.
McLaughlin also gave a statement to the Post that denied any mistreatment or deprivation of constitutional rights and said that detainees get proper meals, medical treatment and showers, and also access to lawyers and family.
The letter from the advocacy groups, however, cites claims of “excessive force” inside the Camp East Montana facility, where guards allegedly utilize sexual violence to enforce discipline.
“Isaac,” a Cuban national who adopted a pseudonym for the purposes of the letter, stated in a sworn declaration, according to the coalition, that after refusing to sign a voluntary deportation form, guards at the camp slammed his head against a wall several times, before an officer “grabbed and crushed my testicles between their fingers, which was very painful and humiliating”, according to the letter.
In another incident, a teenager identified as “Samuel” described how one officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them”, while another “forced his fingers deep into my ears”, before he was reportedly beaten unconscious by guards for turning off an overhead light in his housing unit, the letter says.
“Samuel” suffered broken teeth and testicular trauma requiring hospitalization, according to the letter, which also asserts that he was later billed for the ambulance ride required to treat the injuries allegedly inflicted by the guards.
The letter also says the facility fails to meet basic human needs. The soft-sided tents, which house 72 people per unit, reportedly have failing plumbing.
Detainees have described occasions where sewage backs up from toilets and showers, flooding sleeping quarters and dining areas with water contaminated by feces and urine. And, in some instances, they are allegedly forced to use their own clothing to mop up the waste due to a lack of cleaning supplies, the letter said.
Medical neglect was also described as constituting “deliberate indifference”. The letter details cases of diabetics being denied insulin for days, causing them to faint, and patients with high blood pressure being ignored until they suffer visible medical episodes. Food rations are described as “fist-sized” and often spoiled, leading to rapid weight loss among detainees.
McLaughlin said in response to the Guardian’s request for comment that detainees receive full access to legal counsel, hygiene facilities and dietitian-certified meals. She added that ICE provides comprehensive medical attention that exceeds what many migrants have previously experienced.
“No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States. Get a grip,” she said.
When later asked for further comment on each allegation mentioned in this article and related questions on government policy, DHS responded “No”.
However, Eunice Hyunhye Cho, senior counsel at the ACLU National Prison Project, said that her organization and others have received numerous complaints regarding the failure to provide adequate care to migrants detained at Fort Bliss.
She said the lack of external oversight, combined with the detention facility’s allegedly cutting the detainees’ access to the outside world, has led to the accusations detailed in the letter.
“Placing thousands of people in tent camps in the middle of the desert, in a military base, without adequate staffing was a recipe for humanitarian disaster,” Cho said. “Although shocking, but not surprisingly, this nightmare has come true.”
Local leaders and migrant-rights advocates have previously condemned the vulnerability of detainees in tent-like conditions and raised concerns about potential human rights violations.
Texas congresswoman Veronica Escobar, whose district covers El Paso, has demanded immediate transparency from the DHS, describing having been told of “dangerous and inhumane” conditions at the detention facility and describing it as a “public health hazard” that is deteriorating.
