ICE Detainee's Death Officially Declared a Homicide in Autopsy Report
The Department of Homeland Security issued deportation notices to two people who witnessed Geraldo Lunas Campos' death, but a judge halted their deportations this week to allow them to potentially provide testimony.
The family of a man who was detained at the makeshift immigrant detention center Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas is preparing to file a wrongful death lawsuit following an autopsy report that officially declared his cause of death to be homicide.
“Based on the investigative and examination findings, it is my opinion that the cause of death is asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” Adam C. Gonzalez, the deputy medical examiner for El Paso County, wrote in the report on the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55. “The manner of death is homicide.”
The medical examiner's office had previously indicated it was likely to classify the cause of death as homicide, subject to the results of a toxicology report.
According to the autopsy report, Lunas Campos became unresponsive when he was physically restrained by employees at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent camp at Fort Bliss. He sustained injuries to his head and neck, including burst blood vessels in his neck and on his eyelids. The exact cause of death was listed as “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first said in a news release on January 9 that Lunas Campos had died "after experiencing medical distress."
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore, and that’s it."
After the Washington Post reported that his daughter had shared with the outlet a recording of a conversation she had had with an employee of the medical examiner's office who said her father's death was likely to be classified as a homicide, DHS described Lunas Campos' death as a suicide.
A DHS official told the Times on Wednesday that Lunas Campos had tried to take his own life and “violently resisted the security staff," causing his death.
An internal ICE log referenced an "'immediate' use-of-force incident" involving Lunas Campos but did not provide details or a date.
Lunas Campos' family petitioned a judge earlier this week to stop the deportations of two detainees who said they witnessed the man's death or the moments leading up to it. Both of the witnesses have been given deportation notices since Lunas Campos died on January 3.
On Wednesday, Judge David Briones, a senior US district judge for the Western District of Texas, granted the request to temporarily halt the deportations, saying they would make it harder to “obtain the testimony of these witnesses."
In the family's petition, they said one witness had seen guards choke Lunas Campos to death and the other had seen him struggling with the guards in the moments before he died.
The first detainee, Santos Jesus Flores, told the Post he had also heard Lunas Campos repeatedly saying, "No puedo respirar"—Spanish for "I can't breathe."
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore, and that’s it,” said Flores.
A hearing has been set for January 27 to determine whether the detainees can provide testimony in court.
Lunas Campos is one of six people who have died in ICE custody in the first weeks of 2026, according to ICE records. Three people have died at Camp East Montana since it opened in August.
Physical abuse and medical neglect has been reported at Camp East Montana as well as other detention centers, with an Amnesty International analysis last month warning that some treatment reported at "Alligator Alcatraz" in Florida constitutes torture.
