A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.
Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release.
“They immediately notified contract medical staff on site to conduct life saving measures,” it said, adding that emergency medical technicians arrived to the facility but could not revive Diaz, who was pronounced dead just after 4pm. ICE asserted that Diaz “died of a presumed suicide” but that the “official cause of his death remains under investigation”.
Diaz was detained on 6 January during the Trump administration’s controversial deportation blitz in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He initially entered the US through the Mexican border in March of 2024, when border patrol agents picked him up and he was given a court date with an immigration judge, then released on parole. On 26 August of last year an immigration judge ordered Diaz’s removal “in absentia”. ICE detained him on 12 January in order to deport him.
The extensive tent facility is located on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso.
Thirty-two people died in ICE custody last year, the highest number of fatalities in two decades. At least five people have reportedly died in ICE custody this year.
Another man, Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, who immigrated to the US from Cuba, died in the same detention camp on 3 January. ICE said Campos was “experiencing medical distress” and that staff provided emergency treatment in the hopes of saving him.
His death is potentially being investigated as a homicide. The local medical examiner determined the preliminary cause of death was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression”, according to reports. ICE said he experienced a medical emergency after being “disruptive while in line for medication”.
Santos Jesus Flores, who was detained with him, told the Washington Post that he saw five guards choking him, and that he heard Lunas Campos repeatedly say in Spanish that he couldn’t breathe.
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” the publication quoted Flores as saying.
After reports that Lunas Campos’ death might be investigated as a potential homicide, the Department of Homeland Security said in an email to the Guardian that he had tried to kill himself and “violently resisted” officers who were trying to help him.
Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, also told the Washington Post after it published its article that Lunas Campos was trying to take his own life. The allegation was not part of ICE’s initial statement.
Another Camp East Montana inmate, Francisco Gaspar-Andres, died at a nearby hospital on 3 December. He was 48.
• In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
