Camp East Montana, the tent detention facility on the Fort Bliss military base in west Texas, is now the subject of a motion for preliminary injunction filed Thursday in federal court in El Paso. The motion asks a judge to declare conditions unlawful and appoint an independent monitor. The filing builds on a class-action lawsuit first brought in May by the ACLU Foundation, the ACLU Foundation of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and Farella Braun + Martel LLP. Two expert witnesses anchor the filing. Dean Williams, who has run two state prison systems, testified that conditions at the facility "shock the conscience" and were "far beyond those of the most secure prisons I have overseen" — despite the fact that Camp East Montana is a civil detention facility and the vast majority of its population has no criminal record. Jeffrey Keller, a doctor who has administered healthcare for detention centers in nine states, stated that "poor healthcare and unsafe conditions at Camp East Montana have resulted in preventable death and put all people at risk of harm, including serious injury and death." The specific allegations are granular and damning. Guards allegedly use excessive force routinely — one named plaintiff, Gerald Akari Angye, reportedly suffered a fractured spine and wrist. Guards have allegedly used slurs including "faggot" and "fucker," and in one incident disclosed a detainee's HIV status and held a vote on whether to remove that person from the housing unit. Medical care is allegedly provided in public hallways or at arbitrary nighttime hours; in one case a nurse reportedly told a detainee to harm himself to stop him requesting help. Disease outbreaks compound the picture. More than a dozen people contracted measles in February and March, with hundreds quarantined through May and June. A person with tuberculosis was allegedly housed in the general population in November. Soap is described as widely unavailable, with detainees rationing shampoo packets the size of single-use ketchup containers. In lieu of nail clippers, guards allegedly told detainees to bite their fingernails — and their toenails. The facility's troubled record began almost immediately after it opened in August 2025. ICE itself flagged medical service gaps, unsanitary conditions, and a lost loaded firearm. The Pentagon identified at least 22 violations around food services, safety, and hygiene during the first week of operations. The government watchdog Office of Detention Oversight found Camp East Montana had "among the highest number of violations in a single report of any facility" it has inspected, according to Pogo Investigates. Three detainees have died in ICE custody there, prompting a contractor swap in March from an unnamed Virginia-based firm to Amentum Services, Inc. DHS has previously stated that "claims that there are 'inhumane' conditions at Camp East Montana are categorically false." The filing's attorneys counter that these conditions "serve no legitimate governmental purpose." One unnamed male detainee is quoted: "I am dying of hunger here. I throw up frequently after eating. I am a skeleton of the person I was before. Any day now, I think I will die here." The structural question here is straightforward: a civil detention facility holding people with no criminal records is allegedly operating below the standards of maximum-security prisons, with taxpayer money flowing to a private contractor while the people inside bear the costs in broken bones, disease exposure, and death. The court's response to the preliminary injunction motion will determine whether any external oversight mechanism exists at all.
