People attempting to visit detainees from Minnesota at the Fort Bliss immigration holding facility have been turned away in recent days following the death of a Nicaraguan man transferred from Minneapolis, according to multiple sources.
Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, was found unresponsive in his room Jan. 14 at the nation’s largest immigration detention facility, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful, the Department of Homeland Security said in a news release Saturday. The cause of death is presumed to be suicide, but the official cause of death remains under investigation, DHS officials said.
Starting the next day and continuing through Saturday, people seeking to visit detainees at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility known as Camp East Montana have been told they can’t see people brought from Minnesota, multiple people told El Paso Matters. They asked not to be identified out of concern they could lose their ability to visit detainees.
“I was told by the guards there, ‘Oh, are the people you’re coming to see from Minnesota?’ And we’re like, ‘Yes.’ And she’s like, ‘They’re not allowing the people from Minnesota to have visitors. They’re out in Echo,’ which I’m assuming is part of the camp,” said a person who attempted to visit a detainee from Minnesota on Thursday, less than 18 hours after Diaz’s death.
Others who regularly visit detainees at the Fort Bliss ICE facility as part of a humanitarian response have also been turned away, including Saturday morning, multiple people told El Paso Matters. Families around the country have relied on the El Paso visitation response to check on people detained at Fort Bliss and other area detention facilities as the Trump administration has taken tens of thousands of people in custody to deport them.
ICE policies allow visitors to its detention facilities, including at Fort Bliss, but under tight controls. The prohibition on visitors to detainees apprehended in Minnesota did not occur before Thursday, multiple regular visitors to Fort Bliss said.
DHS officials didn’t respond to questions from El Paso Matters about whether they were denying visitors to detainees from Minnesota held at Fort Bliss or whether the Trump administration was making any changes at the facility after the third death at the facility in seven weeks.
Diaz was taken into custody Jan. 6 in Minneapolis as the Trump administration launched a massive effort to apprehend undocumented immigrants in Minnesota. Many of those being apprehended in Minnesota have been transported to Fort Bliss to prepare for possible deportation.
An aggressive ICE enforcement surge in Minnesota – marked by the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent – has triggered large-scale protests, legal challenges and a federal court order restricting how immigration agents can engage with protestors.
In El Paso, community, faith and civil rights leaders in El Paso gathered Friday and Saturday in Downtown to condemn what they call an “alarming escalation” of violent immigration enforcement and detention following the detainee deaths and immigration raids throughout the borderland.
Charlotte Weiss of the Texas Civil Rights Project said over the last month or two, detainees’ attorneys have been required to make appointments at least 24 hours in advance to see their clients at the Fort Bliss detention facility. That poses challenges when detainees have medical issues, she told El Paso Matters on Friday after the protest outside the Enrique Moreno County Courthouse.
“Because of the medical issues that I’m hearing – and I’m not getting emails daily since this week – for individuals that have severe health needs that are not being met, individuals who are not getting insulin, individuals who have broken body parts that are not being tended to, 24 hours could be enough for some cases, but it may not be for others,” Weiss said.
Diaz is the third person to die in custody of the immigration enforcement agency in El Paso.
Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, of Cuba, died at the Fort Bliss facility on Jan. 3. Citing a recorded conversation between a medical examiner’s office employee and Campo’s daughter, the Washington Post last week reported that the employee stated the cause of death would likely be listed as asphyxia – and the death would likely be ruled a homicide. The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office said Friday that the autopsy report is pending and that it does not release preliminary information.
DHS in a news release said Campos was attempting to take his own life when security “intervened to save his life,” but that he stopped breathing and lost consciousness during the struggle.
On Dec. 3, Francisco Gaspar-Andres, 48, of Guatemala, died in an El Paso hospital after months of illness and hospital visits while detained. ICE said in a news release that medical staff attributed his death to natural liver and kidney failure.
At least four other ICE detainee deaths have been reported by the agency since January, including a 34-year-old Mexican who died in Georgia; a 46-year-old Cambodian who died in Philadelphia; a 68-year-old Honduran who died in California; and a 42-year-old Honduran who died in Houston.
The deaths remain under investigation.
The Trump administration last year initiated a significant expansion of immigration enforcement, using U.S. military bases as detention centers – with Fort Bliss serving as the flagship facility.
The $1.2 billion tent facility opened Aug. 1 while it was still being erected and expanded, taking in about 1,000 people within two weeks.
The center averaged about 2,774 detainees per day as of November – the most than any other detention facility nationwide, according to the latest data available at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University. More than 65,700 people were reported being under ICE custody nationwide as of November.
The Fort Bliss center’s capacity is expected to grow to about 5,000 detainees, making it the largest federal detention center for civil detainees in the country.
The detention center has been under scrutiny since it opened, with an internal ICE inspection report obtained by the Washington Post in September showing dozens of violations of federal immigration detention standards.
The ACLU and other human rights organizations in early December after a site visit released a scathing report alleging detained immigrants were subject to beatings and sexual abuse by officers, as well as medical neglect, hunger and insufficient food, and denial of access to attorneys.
The post Minnesota detainees denied visitors at Fort Bliss following 3rd death at ICE facility appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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