A Cuban detainee in an ICE deportation detention center was strangled, according to the medical examiner’s office. However, US authorities are treating his death as a suicide.
January 22, 2026, 1:32 p.mJanuary 22, 2026, 1:32 p.m
Bojan Stula / ch media
In the USA, resistance to tough migration policies and the controversial deployment of the immigration agency ICE is growing. Now another death in a deportation prison is putting additional pressure on Donald Trump’s government.
Not a week goes by in the USA without new revelations about the methods of the immigration agency ICE (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement”).Image: AP
According to the medical examiner’s office, the death of a Cuban migrant in the ICE deportation detention center in El Paso was not a suicide, but a homicide. That’s according to the El Paso County autopsy report released this week. The 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos died on January 3rd in the ICE prison Camp East Montana as a result of “asphyxia due to pressure on the neck and upper body”.
According to the report, Lunas Campos became unconscious while being physically restrained by security forces. Rescue workers tried to resuscitate him on site, but without success. Forensics documented, among other things, burst blood vessels on the neck and eyelids – all evidence of severe violence.
But the federal authorities continue to portray the incident differently. The US Department of Homeland Security said again that Lunas Campos tried to take his own life, “violently defended himself against security personnel” and collapsed during the operation. According to consistent information from the New York Times and the Washington Post, the authorities did not respond to specific questions about the autopsy report.
A satellite image shows the construction of the ICE deportation prison near the Mexican border.Image: AP
The family of the deceased strongly disagrees with this official account. She is preparing to file a wrongful death lawsuit, according to her attorney. A former partner of Lunas Campos told the New York Times: “He was abused, beaten and strangled to death.” Fellow inmates also support this version. A witness told the Washington Post that he saw guards choking Lunas Campos while he repeatedly shouted: “No puedo respirar” – “I can’t breathe.”
On the same day as the release of the autopsy report, a federal judge temporarily halted the deportation of two inmates believed to be eyewitnesses. Their statements could be central to the family’s legal proceedings.
After the shooting of a mother of three by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, the case draws attention to the huge Camp East Montana tent camp on the Mexican border. Three people have died there since it opened last summer. Critics and inspection reports accuse the facility of inadequate medical care, a lack of security concepts and poor treatment of prisoners. (aargauerzeitung.ch)