EL PASO TIMES: El Paso ICE detention center draws scrutiny from lawmakers across US

'We've got to do better' congressional members demand at Camp East Montana

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig felt a wave of emotions as she walked through Camp East Montana on her first visit to the sprawling immigration detention center in El Paso. 

Craig was not allowed to speak with anyone during her nearly two-hour oversight visit. But she could see the despair in the detainees' eyes. 

"I had an overwhelming sense of sadness," Craig recalled. "Not just for each of the individuals that I was able to make eye contact with today, but also for how far this administration has gone, the overreach, just the fact that this is who we've become as America.

"We've got to do better." 

Camp East Montana is coming under intense congressional scrutiny, with representatives requesting visits and conducting unannounced oversight visits. Representatives from Texas, New Mexico and Minnesota are arriving in El Paso to see the conditions many of their constituents are being held in by Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors. 

Craig, DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party)-Prior Lake, Minnesota, spoke with the El Paso Times on a windy afternoon in front of the main entrance to the detention center following a news conference about her oversight visit to Camp East Montana and the ICE's El Paso Services Processing center on May 4. 

She detailed her visit while standing in front of orange barricades and a white DHS sign that reads "Camp East Montana Detention Facility, El Paso, Texas" at the entrance to the detention center the Trump administration built on Fort Bliss. 

Congressional visitors have made over a dozen visits to the largest detention center in the U.S. 

Craig joins U.S. Reps. Gabe Vasquez, D-Las Cruces, Kelly Morrison, DFL-Wayzata, Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, and Jasmine Crocker, D-Dallas, in carrying out oversight visits to the controversy-plagued immigration detention center. 

US. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, made an oversight visit to the detention center in early April, while U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, made a windshield visit to the detention center in August 2025. 

Acquisitions Logistics LLC initially received a $1.2 billion contract to construct and manage the site, but it was abruptly canceled in March 2026 following reports of abuses and mismanagement at the detention center. Amentum Services officially took over management of the detention center on April 17. 

Camp East Montana has a capacity of 5,000 immigrants. It serves as a deportation hub for immigrants detained in operations across the U.S., such as Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. 

The number of detainees held in the El Paso center has steadily declined. There were 954 migrants held at Camp East Montana on April 1, but as of April 13, there were 715 detainees, according to Escobar's office. 

'Inhumane' conditions at El Paso detention center

Craig toured Camp East Montana and visited the ICE Processing Center, just down the street, where a constituent from Burnsville is being held for deportation.

The congresswoman was able to visit and speak with Andrea Pedro Francisco, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guatemala who needs surgery to treat an ovarian cyst. Pedro Francisco was detained by ICE in Minneapolis during the agency's Operation Metro Surge, when she was just days away from going in for surgery. 

Pedro Francisco was initially held at Camp East Montana, where nurses at the detention center said she did not need any surgery. She was transferred to the ICE processing center, where medical staff confirmed that she had a cyst after an ultrasound. 

Craig came to El Paso with a number of questions about how many immigrants detained in Minnesota were held in Camp East Montana, yet none of these questions were answered. 

Some of the things Craig saw were surreal. One example she mentioned was that "Happy Mother's Day" was written on one of the boards in a pod that Craig and her team visited, she said. 

"I thought about all the young women who perhaps have children at home that they're not able to spend Mother's Day with," Craig reflected, "and all the men and women who have mothers that they're not going to see, and their mothers thinking about them here in this detention facility." 

Pedro Francisco's ordeal raises questions for Craig about conditions in the soft-sided detention center. 

"None of these sites should be set up to house individuals 23-hours-a-day," Craig said. "And it does not feel like this site or the judicial system is adequately resourced to be able to deal with humanity in here. My biggest concern is whether people are getting the medical screenings that they need and the access to mental health care they need." 

Detainees get an hour a day out of their pods to enjoy a yard of fake grass. 

The mental health crisis is exacerbated by being detained, Craig pointed out, and she worries about the mental health of detainees. The experience of being detained in a facility like Camp East Montana leaves a lasting impact on people, Craig explained. 

The congresswoman has spoken with many of her constituents who were detained in the El Paso detention center after they were released. They have all described conditions of being "inhumane" and a "lack of humanity" in the detention center. 

She is convinced, after speaking with her constituents who were released, that the Trump administration uses such heavy-handed tactics in detention centers to force people to choose self-deportation. 

"Absolutely, one of the tactics is to apply an enormous amount of pressure to get individuals to self-deport," Craig explained. "Is that a strategic objective? There is no doubt in my mind that it is." 

Craig noted that voters are souring on the Trump administration's tactics against immigrants, with many thinking that Trump has gone too far. 

"It feels a little bit like political retribution and payback to the Biden administration, which is consistent with the Trump administration," Craig said. "The feeling that the Biden administration did this, so we've got to do that. But these are people's lives. This isn't about politics." 

'Crushing people's dreams' 

Rep. Vasquez, who was born in El Paso and lived across the border in Juárez, visited Camp East Montana on April 6. He is now a congressman in nearby New Mexico. His visit to Camp East Montana brought back dark memories of history. 

"It is reminiscent of things like Japanese internment camps and other dark periods in history that we don't want to replicate and we should not be part of," Vasquez said. "We certainly should not be paying with our taxpayer dollars." 

A federal judge has ruled multiple times that the Trump administration cannot block congressional representatives from carrying out unannounced visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities across the United States. 

He wanted to visit the site after ICE received $75 billion from the Republican tax bill and after his office had received reports of New Mexicans being transferred to the detention center. 

"(Camp East Montana) is a place that is crushing people's dreams, that is full of desperation, in which certainly a lot of mental health issues exist within the detained population, but physical health issues and inadequate access to medical care," Vasquez said. "These things are beneath our American values." 

Vasquez spoke with around a dozen detainees during his visit. He said he was surprised that none of those detainees had a criminal record. 

The immigrants were picked up during routine check-ins, on their way to asylum proceedings or during ICE operations in Minnesota and Albuquerque. He said that many of them were small business owners or farm workers who were "going about their daily lives that got snatched up" and ended up at Camp East Montana. 

He noted that medical attention was inconsistent, despite guarantees from ICE officials that detainees were receiving proper medical attention. 

"There are hard-working folks who are currently being detained in a makeshift prison out in the middle of the desert behind concertina wire who have lost access to their medications, who don't have adequate medical care," Vasquez said. "Many of them have grown so frustrated by being there for months, some three to four months, that they have chosen to self-deport and ICE won't even let themself deport." 

Vasquez sent a letter to Secretary of State Markwayne Mullin and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons following his visit, condemning the lack of transparency over the detention center. He was especially frustrated that ICE made it difficult to conduct the oversight visit and questioned if there was any way for detainees to make formal complaints about conditions. 

"It seems like they similarly have no respect for members of Congress like myself or otherwise to conduct these oversight visits," Vasquez said. "They're making it extremely hard for us to get to the truth. 

"They're purposely keeping information from us. And look, our job as Congress people is to have the power of the purse, to control the funding to places like Camp East Montana." 

'It looks more like a place that you hold livestock than for human beings' 

Morrison came to El Paso on March 23 to meet with her constituents held in the detention center during an unannounced oversight visit. She was made to wait for over an hour before being permitted to enter and was prohibited from speaking with detainees, despite laws that permit unannounced congressional oversight visits. 

She said that she was taken on a tour of the facility and into an unoccupied pod, where up to 72 immigrants can be detained and where they receive their meals. She described a long hallway without windows that looks "more like a place that you hold livestock than for human beings." 

"It is beyond horrifying," Morrison said. "I think it is really important that Americans understand what their taxpayer dollars are being used to do, and it is to commit human rights abuses." 

Morrison, a medical doctor, was especially concerned about detainees' access to medical care. The concern came after her office received reports of a pregnant woman not receiving adequate prenatal care, constituents not receiving diabetes medicine, rotten food being served, and recent measles and tuberculosis outbreaks at the detention center — the site was briefly under quarantine at the time of her visit because of one case of measles. 

She explained that not all her questions were answered, but staff told her that family members are not allowed to bring detainees' medication, so the medics on site have to start from scratch when assessing detainees. She added that the medical staff is proud that they have a testing lab on site now. 

She also described being told about twice-daily pill lines, where detainees line up twice a day for their medication, and that they hope to hold a third distribution time. 

The medical attention "did not feel adequate," she said. 

There have been concerns about access to medical care in Camp East, Montana, since it opened. Three detainees held at Camp East Montana have died since December 2025, including Geraldo Campos Lunas, whose death on Jan. 3 was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Medical Examiner in El Paso. 

Despite the reports of mistreatment and medical neglect, a member of the Camp East Montana staff told her that they "have much better outcomes than a local hospital" in providing medical attention. She said she thought this comment was an odd analogy, as people go to the hospital when they are sick. 

Morrison tied her visit to the need for casting light on what is happening in the country. 

"I want to reiterate how important I think it is that we continue to provide oversight and continue to shed a light on what is happening in this country," Morrison said. "American taxpayer dollars should be spent on making sure that Americans have access to health care and afford their lives and I don't think most Americans if they knew what was happening would be on board with this."