Attempted suicides, fights, pain: 911 calls reveal misery at ICE’s largest detention facility
The emergency calls from a Texas immigration detention center included repeated suicide attempts by detainees, seizures, injuries from fights and a pregnant woman in pain. Data from more than a hundred 911 calls, interviews with detainees and court filings offer a portrait of overcrowding, medical neglect, malnutrition and emotional distress. (AP Video/Allen G. Breed, Michael Biesecker)
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The calls to 911 poured in from staff at Camp East Montana in Texas, the nation’s largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, at a rate of nearly one a day for five months, each its own tale of pain and despair.
A man sobs after being assaulted by another detainee. Another bangs his head against the wall after expressing suicidal thoughts. A pregnant woman complained of severe back pain and also had coronavirus.
“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,” said Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager in Columbia, Missouri, who spent several weeks in the camp before his deportation in February to the Netherlands. “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison.”
A series of hardened tents at the Camp East Montana immigrant detention center loom large in the desert at a U.S. Army base on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)
Fueled by billions of dollars in new funding, ICE operations across the nation have roiled communities, separated families and created a culture of fear in pursuit of President Donald Trump’s vow to rid the country of unauthorized migrants.
apnews.com
Slave labour in camps:
There’s Slave Labor in ICE Detention. Why Aren’t We Talking About It?
Immigrants in U.S. detention are forced to scrub, cook, and clean for pennies, punished with solitary confinement if they resist.
ICE calls it a “voluntary work program” but inside of ICE detention, there’s nothing voluntary about it. At best, detainees are paid a single dollar a day. At worst, they’re forced to clean and labor without pay, punished with solitary confinement if they refuse.
Court filings from Georgia to Washington confirm it: threats, coercion, and deprivation are how private prison corporations keep their facilities running. That’s not a work program. That’s modern-day slavery.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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