A group of migrants, represented by several NGOsued USA due to “inhumane” conditions in Camp East Montanathe largest center of detention for migrants from the country, located at the military base of Fort Bliss in El Paso (Texas).
The appeal, filed on Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the Western District of Texas, includes complaints from four people currently detained at the facility in question, detailing “serious medical negligence,” beatings and sexual harassment by guards, “excessive” use of solitary confinement, inadequate food and unsanitary conditions.
The plaintiffs ask the court to certify the case as a class action on behalf of all detainees at the facility and to declare that conditions there violate the constitutional right to due process.
The mega center, made up of tents and with the capacity to house up to 5,000 detainees, was inaugurated last August and has already recorded three official deaths and a fourth supposedly related to medical negligence.
The Government rejects the plaintiffs’ accusations and assures that they are “categorically false.”
“No detainee is being abused or beaten,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told EFE, adding that the agency “takes seriously the health and safety” of all people in its custody.
In the testimonies collected in the appeal, the plaintiffs report being subjected to chronic hunger, poor medical care, solitary confinement as a tool of punishment, and a feeling that the suffering is deliberate, with the goal that detainees abandon their immigration cases and accept voluntary deportation.
The migrants describe that the center is divided into several tents, closed enclosures “without windows” where there is space for 72 people in bunk beds, bathrooms and a few tables to eat. The lawsuit details that “sewage” frequently overflows in these units and that the staff does not repair them quickly, so the smell of “urine, feces and sweat” is present at all times.
The guards who govern the center, the appeal detailed, “routinely engage” in abusive compartments and “irrational use of force.”
Akari Angye, one of the plaintiffs, was severely beaten by guards for insisting on speaking to a lawyer before signing any documents. The beating was such, the lawsuit says, that he had to be taken to a local hospital, where he was placed in a wheelchair.
“The conditions in this camp in the desert are inhumane and cruel; I had already experienced torture in my country of origin, Cameroon, and I never thought I would be treated so violently in the United States,” wrote the migrant, detained a month ago, in a letter attached to the court document.
Erik Iván Rodríguez, another of the migrants who has sued, has been detained since January, despite not having a criminal record and after being based in Minnesota for eight years.
His health deteriorated “rapidly” in the center, the document details: he has breathing problems and has difficulty walking, after having injured his knee in detention.
“I have lived the worst days and months of life in this place,” Rodríguez, originally from Venezuela, said in written testimony. “What is experienced here in this place, I would not wish even on my own enemy,” he adds.
Three people have also died there: one of them due to suicide, another after kidney failure and the third due to “homicide” in a confrontation with the center’s staff, according to official versions and leaks to US media.
The fourth deceased, who is mentioned in the lawsuit and is not included in the official figures, died days after being released from the center and NGOs denounce that it was due to the “medical negligence” that he experienced in detention.
Under the current Administration, migrant detentions in the United States reached a record level: in January the United States detained more than 73,000 migrants, the highest number since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2001, and this year at least eighteen people have died in the custody of immigration authorities, which is the deadliest level in two decades.
