The death of a Cuban migrant in a controversial ICE facility has been deemed a homicide in a medical examiner’s report after officials attributed the man’s death to a suicide attempt.
Geraldo Lunas Campos died on Jan. 3 at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, and his death was announced in a statement by ICE nearly a week later, on Jan. 9. The agency repeatedly changed its account of how he died, initially saying only that “staff observed him in distress” before medical staff arrived and pronounced him dead. Days later, the Department of Homeland Security offered a new version claiming he’d been trying to take his own life when guards rushed to help him.
An autopsy report by the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner casts doubt on both those versions, however, listing the 55-year-old’s cause of death as “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.” According to The New York Times, he sustained injuries to his head and burst blood vessels in his neck and eyelids. The report is just the latest setback for DHS as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faces mounting calls for impeachment over her handling of immigration enforcement.
The report also cited witnesses who said Lunas Campos became “unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement.”
The mother of two of Lunas Campos’ children, Jeanette Pagan Lopez, told the Times she believed, “He was being abused and beaten and choked to death.”
In an email to the newspaper on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said he “violently resisted the security staff” as they tried to stop him from taking his own life.
The medical examiner’s office said it had detected trazadone and hydroxyzine in his blood, which are used to treat depression and anxiety. The toxicology report also noted he had a history of bipolar disorder and anxiety.
Two detainees who are said to have witnessed the events surrounding Lunas Campos’ death have received deportation notices, though the 55-year-old’s family has asked a judge to block their deportation to allow them to testify about what they saw.
Federal officials said he was arrested in New York in July and has been convicted of 10 crimes. In the wake of the autopsy report’s release on Wednesday, DHS issued a new statement stressing that Lunas Campos was “a criminal illegal alien and convicted child sex predator.”
Camp East Montana opened in August, and he was moved there in September, becoming one of three people to have died in it since.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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