- Oct 17, 2011
- 45,666
- 48,472
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban migrant who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in July last year, was pronounced dead on 3 January. He had been in ICE custody at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent camp at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso.
In a press release about his death, the agency claimed he died after “experiencing medical distress” and said his cause of death was under investigation.
Witnesses in detention with Lunas Campos told the Washington Post a different story. Santos Jesus Flores, who was detained at the camp where Lunas Campos died, said he saw five guards choking the man as he struggled after he resisted going into the segregation unit because he did not have his medications.
During the struggle, Jesus Flores said he heard Lunas Campos say again and again in Spanish that he couldn’t breathe.
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” Flores told the Post.
in a recording reviewed and first reported on by the Washington Post, the El Paso county’s office of the medical examiner reportedly told a member of Lunas Campos’s family that the office was preparing to classify the death as a homicide, subject to results of a toxicology report. [and] reportedly found the preliminary cause was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression”.
Lunas Campos was one of four ICE detainees who died while in custody in the first 10 days of the year and his death was part of a troubling trend; 2025 was the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades.
Asphyxiating people one at a time at the camps will take forever.
In a press release about his death, the agency claimed he died after “experiencing medical distress” and said his cause of death was under investigation.
Witnesses in detention with Lunas Campos told the Washington Post a different story. Santos Jesus Flores, who was detained at the camp where Lunas Campos died, said he saw five guards choking the man as he struggled after he resisted going into the segregation unit because he did not have his medications.
During the struggle, Jesus Flores said he heard Lunas Campos say again and again in Spanish that he couldn’t breathe.
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” Flores told the Post.
in a recording reviewed and first reported on by the Washington Post, the El Paso county’s office of the medical examiner reportedly told a member of Lunas Campos’s family that the office was preparing to classify the death as a homicide, subject to results of a toxicology report. [and] reportedly found the preliminary cause was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression”.
Lunas Campos was one of four ICE detainees who died while in custody in the first 10 days of the year and his death was part of a troubling trend; 2025 was the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades.
Asphyxiating people one at a time at the camps will take forever.
