The death of a Cuban migrant held at a US immigration detention camp in Texas may be investigated as a homicide after a medical examiner reportedly found he died from asphyxia due to neck and chest compression. Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died on 3 January at Camp East Montana on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initially said he died after experiencing medical distress, but the El Paso County medical examiner’s office told a family member it was preparing to classify the death as a homicide, pending toxicology results. Witnesses claimed guards choked Lunas Campos after he resisted being placed in segregation because he did not have his medication.
Santos Jesus Flores, a fellow detainee, told the Washington Post he saw five guards choking Lunas Campos, who repeatedly said in Spanish, “I cannot breathe.” Flores said, “After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it.”
ICE later claimed Lunas Campos had attempted suicide and violently resisted officers, but this was not mentioned in the initial press release. Lunas Campos was one of four ICE detainees who died in the first ten days of 2025, with 2025 being the agency’s deadliest year in over two decades.
Human rights groups have criticised conditions at Camp East Montana, where at least two detainees have died in recent months. The medical examiner’s office said the autopsy report is still pending.
