Congressional Democrats Release GAO Report Detailing Inhumane Conditions and Preventable Deaths at Texas Immigra...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS-02), Ranking Member of the House Homeland Security Committee, led the release of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) newly-completed report examining how the Trump Administration cut corners and rushed the contracting process at the Camp East Montana detention center, leading to substandard conditions, preventable deaths, and wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

“This report details alarming shortcuts taken by the Department of Defense, ICE and the contractor that led to inhumane conditions, inadequate medical care, and multiple deaths that could have been prevented, all while charging taxpayers exorbitant fees,” said Senator Peters. “The federal government has a responsibility to provide appropriate care and safe conditions for people in its custody – but this is just the latest disturbing example of troubling conditions across numerous ICE facilities. I will continue pushing for strong oversight and accountability of the Administration’s detention operations.”

“This report is damning,” said Senator Durbin. “We now know even more details of how dangerous and irresponsible the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign truly is. Not only is the Administration often wrongly detaining people, those detained are experiencing conditions that shock the conscience. Excessive use of force, lacking medical and mental health care, and wasted taxpayer dollars are emblematic of this mass deportation scheme. The American people have rightfully expressed outrage at these policies, and it’s time to hold ICE and their private contractors responsible.”

“This report is an indictment of the Department of Defense under President Trump,” said Senator Reed. “I’m deeply disturbed that the United States military is financing detention camps on American soil and doing so without basic safeguards to protect human life or taxpayer dollars. Preventable deaths, inhumane conditions, and millions of dollars in waste are the direct result of the Pentagon cutting corners and handing a billion-dollar contract to an inexperienced vendor that wrote its own performance standards. My colleagues and I are demanding answers from the Department of Defense.”

“Not only did DHS and the inexperienced and unqualified contractor it hired waste millions in taxpayer funds to hastily open Camp East Montana for Trump’s mass deportations, those housed at this facility faced horrific conditions and inadequate medical care that led to multiple deaths,” said Congressman Thompson. Those in the Federal government’s care must be treated humanely and must be provided medical care, sanitary conditions as well as safety and security. We must hold DHS to account for its treatment of migrants and its flagrant waste of taxpayer funds.”

The report finds that Camp East Montana, ICE’s largest-ever detention facility—a 5,000-bed soft-sided camp on Fort Bliss in El Paso created in a hurried effort to detain immigrants—wasted tens of millions in taxpayer funds, opened without meeting basic detention standards, and has had serious ongoing performance and oversight issues related to health care, use of force, and suicide prevention.

The report details disturbing incidents at the facility:

• a detainee was killed in a use-of-force incident the county coroner ruled a homicide and in which related evidence was missing or destroyed;
• a detainee died by suicide after being placed in the wrong room and left unmonitored;
• a TB-positive detainee was housed in general population after the contractor skipped required testing;
• detainees with diabetes and HIV did not have treatment plans; and,
• a loaded firearm was lost inside the facility and never recovered.

The report ties these failures in part to a rushed contracting process in which the Army used a military logistics vehicle never designed for detention (WEXMAC), selected an inexperienced contractor based on lowest price available, cut ICE’s own contracting experts out of the process, and handed ICE a $1.3 billion contract it didn’t design and couldn’t enforce.

As ICE finalizes the terms of a new contract, GAO warns that incorporating GAO’s recommendations is essential. In addition, GAO points out that ICE’s planned facility expansion—a $38 billion program to convert warehouses into detention facilities using the same contracting vehicle—risks repeating every one of these failures at a dramatically larger scale.

A copy of the final report can be found here.