Immigrant’s Death in ICE Custody in El Paso Ruled Homicide

By Colleen DeGuzman, The Texas Tribune 

EL PASO, TX — The death of a 55-year-old Cuban detainee who died on Jan. 3 at a federal immigration detention camp in El Paso was ruled a homicide Wednesday by the El Paso Medical Examiner’s office.

Geraldo Lunas Campos, who had been detained at Camp East Montana, died from "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” according to the autopsy report, meaning that he couldn't breathe because of pressure on his neck and chest.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Jan. 9 press release said Lunas Campos died after “experiencing medical distress.” About a week later, ICE told the Associated Press that he instead died after attempting suicide and ICE staff attempted to save him.

That change came after the Washington Post published a story saying the El Paso Medical Examiner was likely to rule his death a homicide. Lunas Campos’ daughter shared a recording of a conversation she had with an employee at the medical examiner’s office with the newspaper.

The autopsy report says Lunas Campos became “unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement,” and that his medical records show that he experienced bipolar disorder and anxiety.

Lunas Campos, who was a registered sex offender and convicted felon, is the third detainee to die at Camp East Montana, a tent facility hastily built last summer at Fort Bliss, an Army base in El Paso. The camp was built to hold a growing number of immigrants detained by ICE after the Trump administration launched a national effort to arrest and deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants.

The camp is now the country’s largest immigration detention center, with a capacity to hold 5,000 people.

ICE has recorded four deaths in the last two months in detention centers across Texas, three of them at Camp East Montana.

The first death at Camp East Montana happened on Dec. 3 when Francisco Gaspar-Andres, a 48-year-old Guatemalan, died from what ICE said in a press release was liver and kidney failure. The El Paso Medical Examiner is investigating his death and an autopsy is pending.

Victor Manuel Diaz, a 34-year-old Nicaraguan who died at Camp East Montana on Jan. 14, was the most recent death. He was found “unconscious and unresponsive” in his room, according to a press release from ICE, which added that he may have died because of a suicide attempt but his death is still being investigated.

Two days after Lunas Campos’ death, Luis Gustavo Núñez, 42, died at the Joe Corley Processing Center in Conroe, near Houston. The Honduran man died because of “chronic heart-related health issues” according to ICE.

Lunas Campos, a father of four, was arrested by immigration officers in July 2025 in Rochester, New York, where he lived for nearly two decades. He had been held at the El Paso camp since Sept. 6 and was one of the first detainees sent to Camp East Montana.

ICE said an immigration judge ordered his deportation in March 2005 but he wasn't removed because "the government could not obtain travel documents."