Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant held at a federal immigration detention facility near El Paso, Texas, died January 3 following a confrontation with guards, and the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s office told his family that a preliminary autopsy report classified his death as homicide by compression asphyxia of the chest and neck, according to a recording of the call reviewed by the Associated Press.
The Department of Homeland Security offered a conflicting account, saying Thursday that Campos had violently resisted staff while attempting to take his own life — an account the agency updated only after the AP sought comment.
The death and the divergent official accounts have drawn scrutiny to conditions at Camp Montana East, a $1.2 billion tent facility on the grounds of Fort Bliss Army base that was built and operated by a private contractor with no prior correctional management experience, as the federal government has detained immigrants in large numbers across the country.
Eyewitness account
Santos Jesús Flores, a 47-year-old Salvadoran detainee who said he observed the confrontation through the window of his cell in the facility’s special housing unit, told the AP by phone that Campos was already handcuffed when at least five guards pinned him to the ground and at least one guard placed an arm around his neck.
Flores said Campos’s last words were that he could not breathe. Within about five minutes, Flores said, Campos was no longer moving. He said the guards removed Campos’s handcuffs after he stopped breathing.
Flores said he had consented to his own deportation and acknowledged the risk he was taking by speaking with the AP, but said he wanted to make clear that guards at the facility were abusing detainees. He said multiple detainees in the housing unit had witnessed the confrontation and that security cameras in the area should have captured the events. He also said investigators had not contacted him.
Conflicting official accounts
ICE’s January 9 public statement said Campos had behaved disruptively in a medication line and refused to return to his assigned dormitory, after which he was moved to the segregation unit. “While in isolation, staff observed he was in distress and contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance,” the agency said. “Medical staff responded, implemented life-saving measures and requested emergency medical services.” Campos was pronounced dead after paramedics arrived. The statement made no mention of any physical confrontation between Campos and guards immediately before his death.
After the AP asked DHS for comment, the department updated its account on Thursday. “Campos violently resisted security staff and continued attempting to take his own life,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson. “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”
DHS did not answer questions about whether Campos was handcuffed at the time it says he was attempting suicide, or about the specific manner of the alleged attempt. The department also did not say whether other agencies were investigating.
“ICE takes the health and safety of all those in our custody seriously,” McLaughlin said. “This is still an active investigation, and more details will be forthcoming.”
Preliminary homicide finding
The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s office confirmed Thursday that it had performed an autopsy but declined to comment further.
Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist who has studied deaths during prone restraint, told the AP that the preliminary homicide classification indicates the guards’ actions caused Lunas Campos’s death but does not mean they intended to kill him. He said the medical examiner’s office would likely stand firm on the finding.
“This probably tests positive for the ‘but for’ test,” Weedn said. “‘But for’ the actions of the officers, he would not have died. For us, that’s generally considered a homicide.”
A homicide ruling is typically significant for determining whether guards face criminal or civil liability. Deaths classified as accidental are less likely to result in criminal investigations, and wrongful-death civil claims become harder to establish.
Jurisdiction questions
Because Camp Montana East sits on a U.S. Army base, state and local authorities may face limitations on their jurisdiction to investigate. A spokesman for the El Paso County District Attorney declined to comment Thursday on whether that office was involved.
The facility and its contractor
Camp Montana East is a large tent facility constructed hastily in the desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss. The AP reported in August that the $1.2 billion installation — projected to become the largest immigration detention facility in the United States — was being built and operated by Acquisition Logistics LLC, a private contractor headquartered in a single-family home in Richmond, Virginia, with no prior experience managing a correctional facility. Emails to Acquisition Logistics executives seeking comment were not returned.
It was not clear whether the guards present when Lunas Campos died were federal employees or employees of the private contractor.
Lunas Campos’s background
Lunas Campos arrived legally in the United States in 1996 as part of a wave of Cuban immigrants attempting to reach Florida by boat and lived in Rochester, New York, for more than two decades. ICE arrested him in Rochester in July as part of a planned enforcement operation, citing criminal convictions that made him eligible for deportation. He arrived at Camp Montana East in September, among the first detainees sent there.
New York court records show Lunas Campos was convicted in 2003 of sexual contact with a child under the age of 11, a felony for which he was sentenced to one year in jail and placed on the state sex offender registry. New York correctional records show he was also convicted in 2009 of attempting to sell a controlled substance and sentenced to five years in prison; he completed that sentence in January 2017.
His adult daughter, Kary Lunas, 25, told the AP the child sexual abuse conviction was false and had stemmed from a custody dispute. “My father was not a child abuser,” she said. “He was a good father. He was a human being.”
Family seeks answers
Jeanette Pagan-Lopez, the mother of Lunas Campos’s two younger children, said the medical examiner’s office called her the day after his death to inform her his body was at the county morgue. She immediately called ICE.
Pagan-Lopez said a deputy director at the ICE field office in El Paso subsequently called her back and told her the cause of death was still pending and that the agency was awaiting toxicology results. She said the official also told her the only way to return Lunas Campos’s body to Rochester without charge was if she agreed to cremation. She refused.
After calling ICE repeatedly without response, Pagan-Lopez said she was put in contact with Flores by a detainee at Camp Montana East, and that Flores was the first to tell her about the confrontation with guards. She said she also called the FBI twice; an agent took her information and ended the call.
Pagan-Lopez, a U.S. citizen, said she and Lunas Campos had been together about 15 years before separating eight years ago and that he had been an attentive father who, until his detention, had worked a minimum-wage job at a furniture store — the only employment, she said, he could find given his criminal record.
“He wasn’t a bad person,” Pagan-Lopez told the AP. “I just want justice, and his body here. That’s all I want.”
Pattern of prone-restraint deaths
Deaths during prone restraint — in which a person is pinned face-down while pressure is applied to the back and neck — have been documented across law enforcement encounters for decades. A 2024 AP investigation documented hundreds of deaths during such encounters, with many people saying they could not breathe before dying, according to body-camera and bystander videos. Authorities have often attributed such deaths to preexisting medical conditions or drug use in those restrained.