El Paso ICE Camp East Montana under quarantine after measles outbreak

Camp East Montana is currently under quarantine after a measles outbreak at the immigration detention center in El Paso, multiple sources told the El Paso Times.

The quarantine of the facility follows multiple confirmed cases of measles and at least two cases of tuberculosis at the sprawling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in El Paso.

There are currently 14 active cases of measles, with 112 individuals being quarantined, the U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said on Tuesday, March 3. She condemned that there were attempts to quarantine detainees at local hospitals.

There are around 1,800 immigrants held at Camp East Montana, as of February, Escobar's office previously said, down from a high of 3,100 detainees in January. The detention center is poised to be one of the largest in the United States.

Escobar criticized the company contracted with running the detention center, Acquisition Logistics LLC, which was given $1.24 billion in taxpayer dollars to construct and operate the detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

She again raised concern about the conditions that detainees are being held in.

"Despite what I was initially told about the level of medical care inside the facility, it became very clear to me early on that serious medical issues were being overlooked and, in some cases, medical attention was non-existent for urgent health issues," Escobar said in a statement. "There has also been consistently sub-par access to hygiene, janitorial and laundry services. Whether this has been deliberate on the part of the contractor, or a result of incompetence, the end result is the same: a violation of federal standards and outright fraud."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has previously said that quality medical care is provided to detainees at immigration centers and has denied allegations of mistreatment.

Escobar said her office was never informed of the outbreak and quarantine.

""While on one hand, it is a good thing that the measles outbreak is being taken seriously, on the other hand, I am alarmed that a preventable crisis has created conditions where detainees can only access their lawyers virtually," Escobar wrote.

Lawyers representing detainees are currently barred from making visits due to the outbreak.

Crystal Sandoval, a legal representative with the immigration rights group Las Americas, is one of those who was told she was unable to go and meet with a potential client due to the spread of infectious diseases at the detention center. Sandoval said that cases of measles have been spreading in Camp East Montana for the last three weeks.

"The measles outbreak didn't happen just now," Sandoval said. "This has been going on for the past three weeks."

The city of El Paso previously reported that there were 13 measles cases registered in the detention center. The announcement was made ahead of the decision to place the center under quarantine.

Escobar has repeatedly raised concern that the company contracted to run the detention center, the Henrico, Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics LLC, is not complying with its responsibilities.

The Orlando, Florida-based company Loyal Source is contracted with providing medical services at the detention center.

DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for information regarding the quarantine.

ICE detention center faces claims of repeated abuses

Camp East Montana has been plagued by controversy since it began receiving detainees in August. Civil rights advocates and Escobar have raised concerns about conditions at the center, including allegations of a lack of medical care.

"The measles outbreak at Camp East Montana is a heartbreaking and foreseeable result of a facility that deprives individuals of soap and delays the provision of critical medical care," Charlotte Weiss, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said. "For months, the facility has been on notice of its abuses and refuses to improve its conditions. Camp East Montana must be shut down."

Both national and state lawmakers have called for the investigation into claims of abuses and inhumane conditions at Camp East Montana. Escobar and congressional Democrats called on the Trump administration to close the detention center in a letter they sent to DHS on Feb. 26.

Escobar raised major concerns in her letter to DHS about the lack of medical attention at the detention center, suggesting that Francisco Gaspar Cristóbal Andrés, the first detainee to die in December 2025, died as a result of medical neglect. The death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, was ruled a homicide by the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner. A death of a third detainee, Victor Manuel Diaz, was initially reported by ICE as a suicide, but the autopsy was never released.

Detainees held at the detention center have detailed to the El Paso Timesthe abuses they faced inside Camp East Montana before their deportations, echoing the interviews done by the ACLU. Both Cristóbal Andrés' widow, Lucia Pedro Juan, and another detainee, Ricardo Andrade Mosquera, who was deported to southern Mexico, claimed that medical attention was almost non-existent, detailing how there was regular flooding and unsanitary conditions in the facility.

The former detainees also detailed being verbally abused by guards — many of whom are Latinos themselves —including being called "donkeys" and threats against their loved ones.

The repeated claims of abuses and violations led to Escobar and other Democrats calling for the closure of the detention center.

""There has been nothing but crisis after crisis inside the walls of this tent city," Escobar wrote in her statement about the measles quarantine. "I again renew my call for DHS to shut down Camp East Montana and for the Department of Justice to investigate the contractor for fraud."