WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union released a report detailing a letter sent by human rights groups urging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to end immigrant detention and halt deportations at Camp East Montana, a tent facility located at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, according to a report published by the American Civil Liberties Union
The letter describes violent and abusive conditions, including beatings, sexual abuse, neglect and what it characterizes as “coercive threats” by officers to force deportation.
The letter was written with two stated goals: ending detention operations at Camp East Montana and the immediate halt of deportations of people to third countries to which they have no genuine ties. The letter follows what it describes as widespread media coverage detailing abusive conditions, including a September 2025 report by The Washington Post that cited a leaked internal ICE inspection finding Fort Bliss in violation of more than 60 federal detention standards within the first 50 days of its opening.
According to the ACLU, the letter was drafted after months of interviews with 45 people detained at the base, along with the collection of 16 sworn declarations. The accounts, many provided to attorneys, describe what the report calls a widespread and unreasonable pattern and practice of excessive force by officers, including allegations of abusive sexual contact.
The ACLU report details one account from a detained teenager identified by the pseudonym “Samuel.” He told his lawyers that beatings by officers were so severe that he was left injured and unconscious and was taken to a hospital by ambulance. Samuel’s account describes not only physical abuse but sexual abuse, stating that one officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” while another “forced his fingers deep into my ears.” He said he continues to have difficulty hearing out of his left ear weeks after the beating due to the damage he sustained.
The ACLU also outlines the groups’ renewed call to stop deportations of people to third countries to which they have no genuine ties, citing interviewee reports that describe the prospect of such removals as taking on a particularly abusive character.
The letter further relays accounts of officers using threats of violence, criminal charges and imprisonment to coerce some non-Mexican immigrants into crossing the border into the Mexican desert. The ACLU highlights the case of a Cuban immigrant identified under the pseudonym “Isaac,” who stated in a sworn declaration that officers beat and sexually assaulted him in a manner similar to Samuel’s account before driving him, along with about 20 others, to the Mexican border. Isaac said they were told they could get off the bus and cross into Mexico and that if they refused, they would either be sent to a jail cell in El Salvador or Africa.
The report concludes by noting that the letter was signed by numerous organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of New Mexico, the ACLU of Texas, Estrella del Paso, Human Rights Watch, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center and the Texas Civil Rights Project
The organizations also note what they describe as the irony of Camp East Montana operating as the nation’s largest immigration detention center while being located on a base formerly used for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
