"They Were Frightened": Volunteer Documents Inhumane Conditions at Largest ICE Detention Center in U.S.

Terri Mock didn't need to read another sanitized government press release about immigration enforcement. The Cobbs Creek resident wanted to see the reality for herself.

So the retired U.S. Department of Defense employee returned to Annunciation House, a hospitality center for migrants in El Paso, Texas, where she had volunteered three decades earlier. What she witnessed during two weeks in March was a systematic breakdown of human dignity at Camp East Montana on Fort Bliss, the largest immigration detention center in the United States.

"I saw the toll it had taken on them, being in detention three to six months," Mock said of the men released into Annunciation House's care. "They were frightened. Some asked if they were at ICE, so I'm not sure anybody had explained what was happening to them."

A Desert Detention Camp

Camp East Montana sits in the Chihuahuan Desert, 25 minutes from Annunciation House. The facility is designed to hold up to 5,000 people in canvas tents while they wait for immigration court hearings. When judges determine detainees pose no threat, ICE drops them at Annunciation House via text notification. During Mock's March volunteer stint, men from 31 different countries arrived at the center.

Mock helped at least 30 men coordinate travel back to their homes and families across the United States. First, she had to help them recover from months of detention.

"They just needed a place to get their heads together," she said. "The first thing they all wanted was to charge their phones and FaceTime their families."

One man got to see his week-old baby for the first time.

Stories of Systematic Abuse

Annunciation House volunteers conduct anonymous surveys with released detainees willing to share their experiences. Some men refused, afraid of retaliation. Others needed to tell someone what had happened to them.

The accounts Mock collected describe a detention system operating with impunity:

Men arrested at gunpoint who tried to show legal documentation proving their right to be in the country, only to be ignored. Hours-long waits in holding cells without bathroom access. Nights spent on metal benches before court hearings, leaving detainees too exhausted to present their cases coherently. Court dates delayed for months, then judges who never showed up.

One man from Ecuador had been granted political asylum and owned a flooring business in New York. While working hurricane recovery in Fort Myers, Florida, police stopped him for not having his headlights on during daylight hours and turned him over to ICE. He lost over 50 pounds during six months in detention.

"All the men said the servings of food weren't enough," Mock said. "They were always hungry."

When his judge finally reviewed his case and saw he owned a business, paid taxes, and had customers waiting for his return, he was released immediately. Six months of his life gone.

Disease, Death, and Dust

The physical conditions at Camp East Montana amount to state-sanctioned neglect. The facility sits exposed to desert dust that constantly blows into the tents. Detainees cannot keep themselves clean. Canvas walls dividing tents into pods don't reach the ceiling, making quarantine impossible. Respiratory diseases including COVID-19 spread freely through the population.

One detainee told Mock that a roommate arrived too sick to stand. He tried to get the man medical help. The man died the next day.

Detainees shared rumors of a suicide and a man choked to death by a security guard. Multiple people reported assaults.

"Listening to their stories would totally exhaust me," Mock said. "Now I understand why people don't want to talk about these things. You just didn't want to think about it. I don't think any good stories come out of that place."

Legal Residents Swept Up

The men Mock helped weren't all undocumented immigrants or recent border crossers. Many had legal status, work authorization, or pending asylum cases. They were construction workers, business owners, taxpayers with families and homes in the United States.

The Ecuadorian flooring contractor had already fled persecution in his home country and been granted asylum. He was rebuilding hurricane-damaged homes when Florida police handed him to ICE over a headlight violation.

A man from Guatemala living legally in the U.S. was also detained, his story cut off in the source material but his fate clear: months in a desert tent camp, separated from his life and family, for reasons that had nothing to do with public safety.

The Bigger Picture

Camp East Montana represents the expansion of a for-profit detention system that operates with minimal oversight and maximum cruelty. The facility's remote desert location, inadequate medical care, insufficient food, and dangerous conditions violate basic standards of human treatment.

Mock's volunteer work at Annunciation House provided released detainees with food, clothing, travel arrangements, and something they hadn't received in months: assurance that they were safe.

But the damage had already been done. Men who entered detention healthy left emaciated and traumatized. Legal residents lost businesses and months of income. Families were separated. At least one person died waiting for help that never came.

"His life was stalled for six months in bad conditions," Mock said of the Ecuadorian asylum recipient. "He had already left bad conditions in Ecuador."

The U.S. government put him right back into them.