The recent death of a Cuban immigrant at a federal immigration detention facility in El Paso has been officially classified as a homicide, according to autopsy results released by the El Paso Medical Examiner’s office. This ruling comes in the wake of the death of 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos on January 3.
According to the medical examiner’s report, Lunas Campos died as a result of asphyxia due to compression of the neck and torso while being restrained by law enforcement officers. This conclusion starkly contradicts earlier statements from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which had initially attributed his death to “medical distress” and later suggested it could have been a suicide.
The shift in ICE’s narrative followed a report that hinted at a homicide ruling, which was based on a recorded conversation involving the medical examiner’s office and Lunas Campos’s daughter. This incident marks the second of three recent fatalities at Camp East Montana, a temporary facility that has been under scrutiny for its safety protocols.
Lunas Campos had a history of anxiety and bipolar disorder and was a convicted felon and registered sex offender. He had resided in Rochester, New York, for nearly two decades before his detention in July 2025. Despite a judge’s order for his deportation two decades ago, the federal government had been unable to obtain the necessary travel documents for his return to Cuba.
This incident is part of a troubling trend within Camp East Montana, which was established last summer on the Fort Bliss Army base and has a capacity for 5,000 detainees. The facility is currently the largest immigration detention center in the U.S., especially amid heightened enforcement and deportation activities. Other recent fatalities at the camp include Francisco Gaspar-Andres from Guatemala, who died on December 3, and Victor Manuel Diaz from Nicaragua, found unresponsive on January 14, with his death also being investigated as a potential suicide.
Additionally, a fourth detainee, Luis Gustavo Núñez from Honduras, passed away from heart complications at a different facility near Houston on January 5. Lunas Campos was among the first group of detainees transferred to the El Paso camp in September, and he is survived by four children.
