Family of Cuban migrant who died in ICE custody files $1m lawsuit against camp operators

A 55-year-old Cuban migrant named Geraldo Lunas Campos died while being in the United States (U.S.) Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at Camp East Montana in January and now his family has filed a lawsuit against the camp operators and guards.

The family is seeking $1 million in damages alleging that the guards killed the detainee.

According to KFOX14/CBS4, at first the ICE said that the immigrant, a convicted felon, suffered an undisclosed medical emergency, later changing their stance that it was a homicide.

The detainee death report released by ICE in February claims that Campos died during the spontaneous use of force by staff to prevent him from harming himself.

However, according to the El Paso County Medical Examiner, the cause of the arrested immigrant’s death was “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”

The lawsuit filed by the family on Monday alleges that the companies responsible for managing the facility failed to train and supervise their staff, which resulted in the killing of Campos.

In response to the lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has maintained that the detainee died trying to take his own life as staff tried preventing him from harming himself.

In a statement to the publication, the DHS said, “ICE takes seriously the health and safety of all those detained in our custody. This is still an active investigation, and more details are forthcoming.”

The contractor that was operating Camp East Montana at the time of Campos’s death had not publicly commented on the allegations at the time of publication.