Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant, died on January 3 inside Camp East Montana, a sprawling detention facility built on the Fort Bliss army base outside El Paso, Texas. Six months later, his three adult children are suing four guards and the corporate chain behind the facility, seeking more than $1 million in damages for what they call fatal neglect of his mental health and a violent restraint that killed him.
The complaint, filed in El Paso County state court, targets Acquisition Logistics, the firm that ran the camp at the time; Akima Global Services, which supplied the security staff; and Akima's corporate parent, Nana Regional Corp.
Two Very Different Stories About His Final Hour
What actually happened to Lunas Campos remains sharply contested. The family's suit claims four guards pinned him face down, pressing on his neck and chest even as he pleaded that he couldn't breathe, until — in the lawsuit's own words — his body went limp. A fellow detainee has said staff withheld his medication that same day, a grievance that preceded the physical confrontation.
The government's account is different. DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis told reporters Lunas Campos attempted to take his own life and that staff moved in to stop him. Even that official version has shifted: ICE's original statement blamed disruptive behavior in a medication line, while an updated report released in February attributed his death to force used spontaneously to keep him from self-harm — a different explanation than the one ICE gave the day he died.
The County Medical Examiner Reached Its Own Conclusion
Independent of both accounts, the El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office conducted an autopsy and found that Lunas Campos died of asphyxia from compression to his neck and torso, ruling the manner of death a homicide — a classification that means another person caused the death, not necessarily that anyone intended to kill him. That finding anchors the family's legal case.
Nearly 300 Pages Documenting Months of Warning Signs
A medical examiner's file running close to 280 pages paints a picture of psychiatric needs that went unaddressed for months. Lunas Campos, who lived with bipolar disorder and anxiety and had taken antidepressants before his detention, began complaining almost immediately after arriving at the camp in September 2025 that his medication dosage was wrong. By November, a staff note recorded that he had gone four consecutive days without it. The following month, guards discovered him with a bedsheet knotted around his neck and tied to a door handle; staff discussed moving him to a higher level of psychiatric care, but the transfer never happened.
A Criminal Past — and a Daughter Who Disputes Part of It
Lunas Campos entered the United States legally in 1996 and was arrested by immigration agents in July 2025 during an enforcement operation in Rochester, New York, where he'd lived for two decades. Court and ICE records show a 2003 conviction for sexual contact with a child under 11, which led an immigration judge to order his removal two years later, in March 2005 — an order never carried out because the government couldn't secure travel documents. He also served a later prison term on a drug charge, completing his supervision in 2017.
DHS has repeatedly emphasized that history in public statements. His daughter, Kary Lunas, pushed back directly, telling the Associated Press that the child sexual abuse allegation stemmed from a bitter custody fight and wasn't true. The family's attorney, Will Horowitz, has separately argued that the criminal record is beside the point in a civil facility: It's civil detention, he said, not punishment for a crime.
Federal Investigators Moved In, the Contractor Moved Out
The FBI took over the investigation in January. At an April 16 hearing, then-acting ICE director Todd Lyons confirmed to lawmakers that the case had been referred to federal investigators — testimony he gave the same day he announced he would resign, stepping down effective May 31. David Venturella has run ICE in an acting capacity since, while the White House now has Lance Schroyer awaiting confirmation as the agency's permanent chief.
Separately, in March, Homeland Security stripped Acquisition Logistics of its contract to operate Camp East Montana and installed Amentum Services as the new operator. A federal judge has also agreed to delay the deportation of migrants who say they witnessed the confrontation so they can be deposed.
One Death Among a Growing Number
Lunas Campos is one of roughly 20 people to die in ICE custody so far in 2026, a pace that could surpass last year's total of 33 — itself the highest annual figure in more than two decades. Camp East Montana alone has recorded at least three deaths since opening in 2025 under a $1.2 billion contract. Eleven days after Lunas Campos died, a second detainee, 36-year-old Victor Manuel Díaz, was found dead inside the same facility in what ICE labeled a presumed suicide. A Government Accountability Office report released in June found Díaz had been left in a medical holding room rather than a cell designed to prevent self-harm, and monitored less frequently than protocol required.
Courts, Watchdogs and Geneva Are All Watching Now
The scrutiny extends well past this one courtroom. On May 30, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and allied groups filed a separate class-action suit challenging broader conditions at the camp. Weeks later, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations into deaths across ICE detention nationwide.
Neither Acquisition Logistics nor Akima Global Services has responded publicly to the allegations. Homeland Security has said only that the matter remains under investigation.
