Four detainees at the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the U.S. filed a federal lawsuit on Saturday alleging human rights abuses, "horrific" conditions and "severe medical neglect" at the facility.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, details "inhumane" treatment inside Camp East Montana on the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. The suit describes a litany of abuse allegations, including a lack of medical care and physical violence at the hands of guards, and accuses the government of human rights and constitutional violations.
"Detained people are regularly subjected to severe beatings or sexual harassment by guards; squalid living conditions; spoiled and inadequate food; no meaningful programming or recreation; inadequate access to basic hygiene products such as soap, razors or nail clippers, outbreaks of disease; and limited or no access to sunlight," according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, the center's guards beat Gerald Akari Angye, one of the named plaintiffs, so severely he had to be hospitalized and placed in a wheelchair. Angye, who has been at Camp East Montana for just over a month, claims he was then locked in solitary confinement for 15 days.
"No human being should ever have to go through this," Angye said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations representing the detainees. "I have already experienced torture in my home country of Cameroon and I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America."
Another detainee identified in the complaint only as Navdeep, a former mail handler with no criminal history, says he experienced dirty toilet water flowing into his sleeping area, difficulty accessing cups for drinking water and breathing problems because of excessive dust from the desert. Navdeep wore the same clothes, including underwear, for three weeks, according to the lawsuit.
"We could die here, and it feels like no one here would care," Navdeep said in the ACLU statement.
VERONICA ESCOBAR: I have long been worried about a public health emergency within the facility.
KOCHERGA: El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar has toured Camp East Montana several times since it opened last August. During a visit in late January, Escobar says she was warned to stay out of an area because of an outbreak of tuberculosis.
ESCOBAR: Oh, no, ma'am. You don't want to walk in there. No one in there has been tested for TB yet.
KOCHERGA: Escobar says she asked why none of the staff entering and leaving the area wore masks and was told using protective gear was a personal preference. There was also a measles outbreak in February. The calls to close the camp intensified after three people in custody died. DHS says two deaths are under investigation. Nationwide, more than two dozen people have died in ICE custody since October. Dulce says she's relieved she's been released and reunited with her family but worries about the women still at the camp.
DULCE: (Speaking Spanish).
KOCHERGA: Tears welling up in her eyes, she says they're people who also have families waiting for them on the outside.
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