A Cuban immigrant died Jan. 3 at a Texas immigration detention facility on a U.S. Army base, and the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office has told his family that a preliminary autopsy classified his death as a homicide resulting from asphyxia from chest and neck compression, according to a recording of that call reviewed by the Associated Press. The federal government provided a differing account, saying Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, had been attempting suicide and that staff tried to save him.

A fellow detainee who said he witnessed the incident through his cell window told the AP that Lunas Campos was already handcuffed when at least five guards pinned him to the floor and at least one placed an arm around his neck. “The last thing he said was that he couldn’t breathe,” said Santos Jesús Flores, 47, of El Salvador, speaking in Spanish by telephone from the facility.

The death and conflicting official accounts have intensified scrutiny of conditions at immigration detention facilities as the federal government has expanded enforcement operations and detentions across the country. A final homicide ruling by the medical examiner would typically be significant in determining whether guards face criminal or civil liability — an outcome that a preliminary finding of death by asphyxia from chest and neck compression sets in motion.

Conflicting accounts

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is legally required to issue public notification of detainee deaths. Its Jan. 9 release said Lunas Campos became disruptive while waiting in line for medication and was escorted to a segregation block. The notification said staff observed him in distress, contacted on-site medical personnel, and that medical staff initiated lifesaving measures before paramedics arrived and pronounced him dead. It made no mention of any altercation between Lunas Campos and guards.

After the AP sent questions, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, amended its account Thursday. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Lunas Campos “violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life.”

“During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness,” McLaughlin said. “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.”

DHS did not respond to questions about whether Lunas Campos was handcuffed at the time officials say he attempted suicide, or exactly how he had tried to kill himself.

Flores, speaking before DHS issued its amended account, said the revised account still omitted what he saw: that Lunas Campos was already restrained when guards tackled him.

“He didn’t want to enter the cell where they were going to put him,” Flores said. “After he stopped breathing, they removed the handcuffs.”

Flores said within about five minutes of the restraint Lunas Campos was no longer moving. He said multiple other detainees in the segregation unit witnessed the incident and that security cameras there should have captured the events. He said investigators had not yet interviewed him.

Though he acknowledged he was taking a risk by speaking to the AP, Flores said he wanted to highlight that “in this place, guards abuse people a lot.” Flores said he had already consented to deportation to El Salvador.

Medical examiner’s finding

The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Thursday it had conducted an autopsy but declined to comment further. The preliminary homicide finding — death by asphyxia from chest and neck compression — was communicated to the family by telephone, according to the recording reviewed by the AP.

Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist who has studied prone-restraint deaths, said a preliminary homicide ruling indicates that guards’ actions caused Lunas Campos’ death but does not mean they intended to kill.

“This probably passes the ‘but for’ test,” Weedn said. “‘But for’ the actions of the officers, he would not have died. For us, that’s generally a homicide.”

Weedn said medical examiners in such cases can face pressure but said the El Paso office would likely “stick to its guns.”

Deaths ruled accidental or otherwise are less likely to prompt criminal investigations, and wrongful death lawsuits become harder to prove. The fact that Lunas Campos died on an Army base may further complicate state and local officials’ jurisdiction to investigate. An El Paso County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson declined Thursday to say whether it was involved in any investigation. DHS also declined to say whether other agencies were investigating.

Camp Montana East

Camp Montana East is a sprawling tent facility hastily constructed in the desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss. The AP reported in August that the $1.2 billion facility, expected to become the largest immigration detention site 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 running a corrections facility.

It was not immediately clear whether the guards present when Lunas Campos died were government employees or employed by Acquisition Logistics. Company executives did not respond to emails sent Thursday.

Lunas Campos was among the first detainees sent to Camp Montana East, arriving in September after ICE arrested him in Rochester, New York, in July as part of a planned enforcement operation. He had been legally admitted to the United States in 1996, part of a wave of Cuban immigrants who sought to reach Florida by boat, and had lived in Rochester for more than two decades.

New York court records show Lunas Campos was convicted in 2003 of sexual contact with an individual under 11, a felony for which he was sentenced to one year in jail and placed on the state’s sex offender registry. 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, records show.

His adult daughter, Kary Lunas, 25, said the sexual abuse accusation had been false, made during a contentious custody dispute. “My father was not a child molester,” she said. “He was a good dad. He was a human being.”

Family seeks answers

Jeanette Pagan-Lopez, the mother of Lunas Campos’ two youngest children, said she learned the day after his death that his body was at the El Paso County morgue. She called ICE and eventually reached an assistant director of the El Paso field office, who she said told her the cause of death was pending toxicology results.

The official also told her, she said, that ICE would return Lunas Campos’ body to Rochester free of charge only if she consented to his cremation. She declined and is now seeking help from family and friends to cover shipping and funeral expenses.

Pagan-Lopez said she later learned of the altercation through a detainee who connected her with Flores. Since then, she said, she has repeatedly called ICE without getting a response. She also said she twice called the FBI, where an agent took her information before hanging up.

In the family’s last phone call, the week after Christmas, Pagan-Lopez said Lunas Campos had spoken with his children about his expected deportation to Cuba and told them he wanted them to visit the island so he could remain in their lives.

“He wasn’t a bad guy,” Pagan-Lopez said. “I just want justice, and his body here. That’s all I want.”

Context: deaths during prone restraint

The circumstances described by the witness echo a pattern documented in a 2024 AP investigation that found hundreds of deaths during law enforcement encounters in which people were restrained face down. Many uttered “I can’t breathe” before suffocating, according to body camera and bystander videos reviewed in that investigation. Authorities have often attributed such deaths to preexisting medical conditions or drug use, the AP found.