Calls to 911 came almost daily from inside Camp East Montana, the largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in the country.
Over five months, emergency calls painted a stark picture of life inside the sprawling tent complex outside El Paso, Texas, where thousands of migrants have been held amid allegations of overcrowding, medical neglect and deep psychological distress.
Recordings and data from more than 100 emergency calls, obtained by The Associated Press (AP), reveal repeated scenes of desperation.
Staff reported detainees attempting suicide, suffering seizures, collapsing from medical conditions and pleading for urgent care. In some cases, violence between detainees triggered emergency responses.
One man sobbed after an assault by another detainee. Another repeatedly struck his head against a wall after expressing suicidal thoughts. A pregnant woman in severe pain, also infected with coronavirus, required emergency attention.
For those inside, the experience often felt endless.
“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,” said Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager from Columbia, Missouri, who spent weeks in the camp before being deported to the Netherlands in February. “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison.”
The detention complex sits along the Chihuahuan Desert at Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base that once held Japanese Americans during World War II.
Built quickly last summer, the camp resembles a temporary desert settlement, with six long tents housing thousands of detainees dressed in color-coded uniforms and rubber Croc-style shoes.
Inside those windowless tents, detainees describe cramped communal living pods where roughly 3,000 people have lived daily. The noise rarely stops. Hygiene is difficult to maintain. Illness spreads easily.
The facility is currently closed to visitors until at least March 19 because of a measles outbreak, according to U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso.
Former detainees say basic necessities often felt out of reach. Many struggled to obtain medication or medical care. Some reported losing alarming amounts of weight because food portions were small or unappetizing. Tensions regularly flared in the crowded living spaces.
Ramsingh said fights sometimes broke out when hungry detainees stole food from one another. Between scheduled cleanings, he said bathrooms and showers became filthy and infested with insects.
He also described a disturbing conversation he overheard involving security guards allegedly discussing a betting pool on which detainee might die by suicide next. According to Ramsingh, one guard claimed to have contributed $500 to the pool.
The Department of Homeland Security rejected that account, calling it false but offering no explanation of how it had investigated the claim.
The psychological toll inside the camp has been severe. Records show at least six suicide attempts that required emergency calls in addition to two deaths.
On Jan. 3, guards restrained a 55-year-old Cuban detainee, Geraldo Lunas Campos, after he attempted to harm himself. A medical examiner later ruled his death a homicide caused by asphyxia.
Just eleven days later, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide days after being detained while working in Minnesota.
DHS officials say the facility’s medical staff closely monitors detainees considered at risk and provides mental health treatment designed to prevent suicide attempts.
Yet the 911 logs also reveal a steady stream of other medical emergencies. Among the 130 calls made between the camp’s opening in mid-August and Jan. 20 were reports of seizures, chest pain, heart problems and head trauma.
Many of the calls were made by medical staff themselves.
Roland Kusi, a 31-year-old detainee who fled political violence in Cameroon in 2022, described the psychological strain of life inside the facility.
“It’s not easy in here, psychologically,” Kusi said. “You keep thinking all the time about a solution. It’s really mentally draining.”
Immigration authorities detained Kusi in Chicago last September while he and his wife, a member of the Army National Guard, were registering their marriage as part of an effort to obtain legal residency for him.
Other detainees describe medical neglect.
A Cuban immigrant in his 50s said he repeatedly requested medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and an enlarged prostate during a six-week stay at the camp but never received it. Fearing retaliation, he spoke on condition of anonymity.
At one point, he refused to leave his sleeping quarters when a cleaning crew arrived, hoping it would force attention to his condition. An immigration officer offered him ibuprofen and suggested he consider leaving the United States voluntarily.
“He said there are too many detainees and not enough medicine,” the man recalled. “Then he told me maybe it’s better to leave. Go to Mexico. Go to Cuba. There you can have your medicine.”
Fearing he might die without treatment, the man eventually agreed to self-deport to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, across the border from his wife and 11-year-old son who remain in El Paso.
ICE data show most detainees stay at Camp East Montana for about nine days before being transferred or deported. But some remain far longer because of legal complications or logistical delays.
Ramsingh said he spent weeks in the camp after immigration authorities lost his Dutch passport following his deportation order. When he finally left, he said personal belongings including gold jewelry were missing.
The detention surge follows President Donald Trump’s renewed push to remove unauthorized migrants from the United States. ICE operations have expanded nationwide with billions of dollars in new funding.
The crackdown has filled detention centers rapidly and forced the agency to search for additional space to house detainees.
Data from ICE show that about 80 percent of detainees at Camp East Montana had no criminal record, contradicting the administration’s repeated pledge to prioritize deportation of the “worst of the worst.”
Critics say the conditions inside the facility reflect the speed with which it was constructed. The camp was built after the government awarded a contract worth up to $1.3 billion to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a Virginia based company that had never operated an ICE detention facility before.
Subcontractors including security company Akima Global Services and medical provider Loyal Source operate key parts of the camp. Akima did not respond to requests for comment. Loyal Source declined to comment.
Escobar, who has visited the camp several times, has called for its closure and an investigation into the contractors.
“This facility should not be operational,” she said. “It feels like contractors are experimenting while people are losing their lives.”
During one visit, Escobar said a female detainee showed her a serving of scrambled eggs that remained frozen in the center. Detainees had already protested after milk, fruit and juice were removed from their meals.
Another detainee from Ecuador told Escobar his arm had been broken during a violent arrest in Minnesota. Weeks later, he was still waiting for proper treatment.
“I asked if he had asked for help,” Escobar said. “He told me, ‘I ask every day, all day. The only thing they give me is aspirin.’”
A required ICE inspection reportedly found the facility violated at least 60 federal detention standards, according to a Washington Post report. The findings have never been publicly released.
DHS officials dismissed those claims as false and said a recent inspection by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight had been completed, though that report has also not been made public.
Meanwhile, emergency calls from inside the desert complex continue to reveal the daily reality faced by detainees and staff alike.
In one recording after a suicide attempt, a shaken medical worker spoke with a colleague about the incident. A security supervisor tried to reassure the doctor.
“Things like this shouldn’t happen,” the supervisor said.
But according to the steady stream of 911 calls, they often do.
