Congresswoman details 'unbelievably inhumane conditions' at massive detention center
U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison traveled to a sprawling immigrant detention center on the outskirts of El Paso on Monday for an unannounced oversight visit of the facility where many people were transferred after being detained in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge.
Detainees, their attorneys and journalists have reported dangerous and squalid conditions at Camp East Montana, the nation’s largest immigrant detention center, which was hastily constructed last summer to meet the Trump administration’s rapacious demand for space to hold immigrants targeted for deportation.
It consists of five massive tent structures on the site of a former World War II detention camp for Japanese Americans at Fort Bliss. The facility has a maximum capacity of 5,000 people with each tent divided into windowless rooms, where as many as 72 detainees are held around the clock, save the one hour per day when they are taken outside, Morrison said.
“These are unbelievably inhumane conditions,” Morrison said in an interview on Wednesday. The OB/GYN physician represents Minnesota’s 3rd District, comprising the west and northern metro suburbs.
Detainees say they have found worms in the food, the roof leaks when it rains, and medical care is virtually non-existent. Andrea Pedro-Francisco, who was sent to the facility after being arrested in Burnsville, told the Reformer she has been living in agonizing pain for over a month in detention, suffering from a large ovarian cyst at risk of rupture.
Three detainees died in the facility in a six-week period, including a man who was suffocated in a struggle with multiple guards.
Conditions at the facility became so poor that ICE recently terminated the $1.3 billion contract with the company operating the facility, Acquisition Logistics, which had never run an ICE detention facility before.
The Department of Homeland Security, flush with funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, plans to spend nearly $40 billion to expand detention capacity nationwide to nearly 100,000 people.
“It’s important that the American people understand that their taxpayer dollars are being used to commit human rights abuses,” Morrison said.
Morrison said she knows of four of her constituents who are being held in the facility, including a pregnant woman and a man with diabetes who is not receiving his medication. Another man from Minnesota was also denied his medication for diabetes at Camp East Montana and chose to voluntarily depart the country.
Morrison said she was initially denied entry given the on-going measles outbreak, a symptom of the crowded conditions that have also enabled the spread of tuberculosis and COVID-19.
Morrison persisted. She said she is vaccinated and entitled to conduct oversight as a member of Congress, which a federal judge recently affirmed in a lawsuit brought by Morrison and other members of Congress after Homeland Security sought to require they provide one week’s notice before inspecting a detention facility.
After more than an hour, Morrison was allowed to enter but not talk with her constituents, nor any other detainees in the facility. She also was not permitted to leave a note.
“They said it was too difficult to get them a note because it would be hard to find them,” she said.
Morrison met with several employees from the Department of Homeland Security, as well as contractors. She said they told her 900 people were currently in the facility, although there was no way for her to verify that figure. Around 3,000 people have been held there on average previously, most without serious criminal records.
Officials at the facility could not say how many people there currently were detained in Minnesota, Morrison said.
Immigrants are being held in facilities like Camp East Montana under the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy, which has been affirmed by two appeals courts despite being widely rejected by lower court judges. They remain in custody during immigration proceedings, which can take years, while being regularly nudged to voluntarily depart the United States.
Fallout over Operation Metro Surge — during which two Americans were killed and a federal judge found “compelling and troubling” evidence of racial profiling — has created a standoff in Washington over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
The agency has been in a partial shutdown for 40 days. Democrats are demanding reforms to ICE in exchange for the votes to pass a funding bill; Republicans have thus far refused to agree to the conditions, including prohibiting ICE agents from wearing masks and requiring a judicial warrant to enter a private residence.
Morrison said she remains firmly in favor of Democrats’ demands for changes to ICE.
“After what happened in Minnesota, there’s no way we can fund ICE anymore until there are significant reforms,” Morrison said.
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.
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