The death of a man at a Texas immigration detention camp is likely to be classified as a homicide despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement claiming that he took his own life.
Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died on Jan. 3 while being held in detention at Camp East Montana, the sprawling tent city at the Fort Bliss military base that is the nation’s largest immigration detention center.
El Paso County’s Office of the Medical Examiner told his daughter this week that it was likely to classify his death as a homicide, according to a Washington Post report.
An employee with the medical examiner’s office told Lunas Campos’s daughter that “our doctor is believing that we’re going to be listing the manner of death as homicide,” and that the “preliminary cause of death [would be listed] as asphyxia due to neck and chest compression.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the El Paso County’s Office of the Medical Examiner for confirmation.
Lunas Campos, an immigrant from Cuba, died on Jan. 3 after a struggle with detention staff, according to an eyewitness account and an internal ICE document reviewed by The Post.
ICE previously said in a statement that Lunas Campos was placed in a separate housing unit following “disruptive” behavior, while waiting in line for medication.
Staff later saw Lunas Campos “in distress,” which is when emergency personnel were contacted. They were ultimately unable to save his life, according to the ICE account of what happened.
Meanwhile, Santos Jesus Flores, who was in the same unit as Lunas Campos, told the Post that he observed at least five guards wrestling with him after he refused to enter the unit, as he said he did not have his medications.
Flores said he heard Campos repeatedly saying, “No puedo respirar”—Spanish for “I can’t breathe.”
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” Flores told the Post.
Jeanette Pagan Lopez, the mother of two of Lunas Campos’s children, told the outlet she was contacted by FBI personnel, who told her the agency is investigating Lunas Campos’s death.
“I know it’s a homicide,” Lopez said. “The people that physically harmed him should be held accountable.”
DHS, however, provided a different version of events.
“On January 3rd, Geraldo Lunas Campos, a criminal illegal alien and convicted child sex predator, attempted to take his own life while he was detained at the Camp East Montana detention facility,” a DHS statement to the Daily Beast read.
“The security staff immediately intervened to save his life. Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life. During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness. Medical staff was immediately called and responded.
“After repeated attempts to resuscitate him, EMTs declared him deceased on the scene.”
The statement concluded, “ICE takes seriously the health and safety of all those detained in our custody. This is still an active investigation, and more details are forthcoming. ICE investigates the circumstances of all deaths in custody.”
Lunas Campos’s death comes as tensions surrounding ICE are already high after an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minnesota woman, last week.
Including Lunas Campos, at least four people have died while in ICE custody during the first 10 days of the year. At least 31 people died in ICE custody last year—the highest number in two decades. These alarming statistics have worried activists.
“ICE kills — full stop. Whether ICE is targeting people in the streets, where they work or live or behind closed doors in one of its nearly 200 abuse-ridden detention centers across the country.” Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, said in a statement shared with The Hill. “ICE is an inherently violent agency jeopardizing families and community safety.”
