Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss
EL PASO — Legal organizations have filed a motion for preliminary injunction demanding ICE provide adequate healthcare and improve conditions for people detained at Camp East Montana, the nation’s largest immigration detention facility located on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso.
The motion, which was filed on Oct. 16, comes as ICE is on track to have its deadliest fiscal year on record, as deaths in detention have nearly doubled since last fall, including three deaths at Camp East Montana alone, according to the Texas ACLU.
"The need for court-ordered relief is urgent," said Savannah Kumar, attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “For the past year, the government has disappeared thousands of people into its desert camp that has been the site of beatings by guards, death, disease, and hunger. The situation has continued to deteriorate. People held inside tents describe the denial of desperately needed medical care, environmental hazards, and filthy conditions.
“These unbearable conditions violate U.S. law and erode the moral fabric of our country.”
The motion is supported by more than 40 declarations from people currently or formerly detained at Camp East Montana, loved ones of people who have died, and correctional and medical experts.
The filing describes the government's systemic failure to provide adequate medical care and humane living conditions.
Dean Williams, a former state prison director who evaluated the conditions in Camp East Montana, wrote in support of the motion that the “conditions reported in those declarations shock the conscience.”
“People describe degrading, unsafe, and unsanitary conditions, abuse by guards, and extreme restrictions and harsh treatment far beyond those of the most secure prisons I have overseen,” he wrote.
The conditions reported include medical neglect, unsanitary and unsafe conditions, confinement to windowless tents for 23 to 24 hours a day, barriers to legal counsel, and such little food that people experience substantial weight loss and other serious medical conditions. People detained at the facility also describe being physically beaten by guards and confined in extreme isolation as punishment for seeking help.
In May of 2026, the ACLU of Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, and Farella Braun + Martel filed their lawsuit against ICE after the federal government began detaining thousands of people in a tent encampment on the Fort Bliss military base in the El Paso desert.
The facility has repeatedly come under fire since its opening in August 2025 following rampant reports of abusive, inhumane and deadly conditions.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas case number 3:26-cv-01515
