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Federal immigration officials in Texas prevented US representative Veronica Escobar from fully conducting her congressional oversight duties at a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, the lawmaker said in an interview with the Guardian.
Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso and surrounding areas on the US-Mexico border in west Texas, conducted an oversight visit last month at the Camp East Montana ICE tent facility housed in the Fort Bliss military base, after two separate “disturbances” had been reported there in recent weeks.
But when she arrived to scrutinize conditions at the camp, the largest ICE detention center in the country, she said she was not allowed to speak with any of the detained immigrants. She also requested surveillance footage of the reported incidents but said she has not received it.
“The administration obviously has attempted to block congressional oversight,” Escobar said in a telephone interview with the Guardian. “It’s been very challenging at times. And that has depended on, to a large extent, what the directive has been from the administration.”
The constraints placed on Escobar is one of the latest instances in which the Trump administration has limited members of Congress’s ability to conduct oversight visits into federal immigration detention centers.
Escobar and other federal lawmakers sued the Trump administration last year for blocking such access. Despite a federal judge ruling in favor of the lawmakers last December, there have been subsequent reports of ICE officials placing limits on or turning away members of congress when attempting to conduct oversight visits.
“Oversight, during the second Trump administration, has certainly been significantly more challenging than during the first Trump administration,” Escobar added.
Camp East Montana was hastily constructed last summer at the huge army base in El Paso. Unlike other ICE detention centers housed in buildings, this facility is a sprawling “soft-sided” tent camp. It has the capacity to hold up to 5,000 people and has drawn complaints and demands for its closure from the time it opened.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, reported two separate “disturbances” within one week there in early September. On 1 September, it alleged that detained immigrants assaulted security staff by striking, kicking and throwing tablets at them.
On 7 September, a larger group of around 130 detained immigrants allegedly threw items, flipped furniture and disabled security cameras. The detainees also knocked down partitions between the tented living quarters, known as pods, at the detention camp, Escobar said.
An ICE official at the facility called 911 during the incident, according to reporting by the El Paso Times. The newspaper’s revelation contradicted what ICE officials apparently told Escobar during her visit.
“While there absolutely have been serious issues and mismanagement, fraud, deaths, and a homicide, there had never been a riot,” Escobar said. “There had never been, especially in two weeks in a row, situations where the contractor lost control of the population in their custody.”
Escobar said that when she spoke with an ICE official about incidents, the official pointed to the detained immigrants’ nationality as the cause.
“The deputy was very quick to blame the nationality of the detainees, saying that the Venezuelans are a difficult population,” Escobar said.
It is still unclear what exactly happened during the two incidents.
Members of Congress have the legal power to conduct oversight visits into ICE detention facilities nationwide, by visiting the sites without prior notice and speaking with detained immigrants. Lawmakers have claimed that the Trump administration has limited those oversight visits by requiring lawmakers to submit the names and personal information of detainees they want to speak with beforehand.
The homeland security department disputed Escobar’s claims in an email to the Guardian, while adding that it considers many oversight visits “a media act”, and also denied that there has been an official request for data and footage.
“Any member of Congress can still request to speak with any illegal alien in ICE custody,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “If an illegal alien and a member of Congress agree to meet with one another, ICE will facilitate the meeting. We are not stopping members of Congress from meeting with illegal aliens, including many with criminal histories in ICE custody, or touring ICE facilities.”
Since Camp East Montana opened last summer, it has been plagued with accusations of abuse, mismanagement and dire conditions. Immigrants and human rights groups have repeatedly alleged human rights and constitutional violations at the site, including physical abuse, sexual harassment, inedible food and medical neglect. ICE was sued over alleged “dire” conditions earlier this year.
At least three people detained at the site have died in ICE custody, including a 55-year-old man whose January death was ruled a homicide after security guards beat him.
This year, an internal ICE inspection found a number of deficiencies at the site, including with guards’ use of force. A US government accountability office report also found a series of problems with the facility’s contract, its construction and the conditions. The office made four recommendations to DHS, ICE and the US army. Those recommendations remain “open”, meaning they have not been resolved.
“That facility, from my perspective, should not be operational,” Escobar said. “It should have been shut down a long time ago.”
During her recent Camp East Montana oversight visit, Escobar pressed for the private contractor running the facility to be held accountable for the recent incidents, not just the detained immigrants deemed responsible. Earlier this year, ICE gave the multi-million-dollar contract for running the facility on its behalf to a new private security company.
“The contractor needs to eat those costs [of the damage]. If they were not prepared, if they were unable to control the situation, the American taxpayer should not pay for their incompetence,” Escobar said. “These private contractors are making enormous sums of money. And frankly, there needed to be accountability with this contractor.”
The DHS spokesman said that far from closing, Camp East Montana “is upgrading” and claimed that the contractor now running the site was providing more services and “precise quality assurance”.
“ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody,” the spokesperson said.
Amentum Services, a Maryland-based contractor now running the Camp East Montana facility, did not respond to a request for comment.
Acquisition Logistics, a small and relatively-unknown company based in Virginia first secured a nearly $1.3bn contract to run the site. Amentum took over this April after previously working as a subcontractor at the site.
Meanwhile, there have been further accusations of alleged rights violations at other detention facilities. The Guardian has reported exclusively on a series of force feedings in ICE facilities, including inside two detention centers in Texas.
During the first Trump administration, Escobar criticized and investigated ICE’s use of force feeding on hunger strikers in 2019.
“It’s a very barbaric practice,” Escobar said. “The rapid expansion of immigration detention, under the [second] Trump administration– and fueled by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill – it is allowing more and more of this absolutely unacceptable behavior by the federal government to continue.”
