By Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - A federal immigration detention center in Texas erected by the Trump administration failed to issue use-of-force reports, did not give medicine to seriously ill detainees and wasted tens of millions in taxpayer dollars through rushed contracts, a U.S. government watchdog report published on Tuesday said.
The report, issued by the Government Accountability Office, found “significant, pervasive issues” with planning and oversight at the Camp East Montana detention center.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to detain record numbers of immigrants as part of Trump’s mass deportation effort. Some 57,000 immigrants were detained as of early June, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, up from around 40,000 when Trump took office in 2025.
Camp East Montana was opened in August 2025 on the grounds of the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso using an expedited military contracting process to speed up its construction. Under the fast-track process, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave the contract to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small firm with no prior detention experience.
The GAO report raised questions about the handling of two deaths at the facility in January 2026, one ruled a homicide and the other a suicide.
In the homicide death, the detention center did not provide use-of-force or death reports to ICE and evidence “was missing or destroyed,” the report said.
In the suicide, staff placed the detainee in a medical holding room instead of a suicide-resistant cell and left the person unattended for longer than 15 minutes, the report said.
When ICE medical officials visited the site in December 2025, they found that the medical contractor did not provide treatment and care to detainees with chronic health problems.
“For example, none of the detained noncitizens with diabetes or HIV had treatment plans in place,” the report said.
The contract for Camp East Montana was abruptly shifted to Amentum Services Inc in March 2026.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said “ICE is always looking at ways to improve [its] detention facilities” and cited the move to a new operator.
“Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said.
Acquisition Logistics did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
