Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse and Inhumane Conditions at Largest Immigration Detention Center in the U.S.

At the largest immigration detention site in the country, officers beat up Samuel, a detained teenager who uses a pseudonym, so badly, he had to go to the hospital. His right front tooth broke, and he said one officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” while another “forced his fingers deep into my ears.” He added that weeks after the beating, damage to his left ear was so severe that he now has trouble hearing.

Samuel’s is just one of dozens of accounts of abuse from the immigration detention site at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. These accounts reveal an unfolding humanitarian crisis at the military base — one which may spread across the country as the Trump administration expands detention dangerously, recklessly and with unprecedented speed.

Human rights organizations, including the ACLU, sent a letter Monday to U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) detailing accounts of violent assaults and sexual abuse by officers. It also reveals details of other forms of intimidation used to pressure detained immigrants into self-deporting or agreeing to removal to third countries where they have no ties. The findings are based on interviews with more than 45 people currently held at Fort Bliss, and the letter includes 16 signed declarations by people detained at the facility.

ICE began detaining people at Fort Bliss three months ago, while the site was still an active construction zone. Fort Bliss is the largest detention facility in the country, holding roughly 3,000 people, just a few thousand shy of its planned maximum capacity. Immigrants are housed in tent structures in the extreme El Paso heat. This tent camp, built on a former Japanese internment camp, marked the Trump administration's novel approach to expanding the immigration detention system in its second term. Fort Bliss is the administration’s first detention facility at a military base, but likely not the last. With a $1.2 billion price tag, the facility marks a pivotal point in the Trump administration’s effort to use the U.S. military, in this case its bases, as a central tool of immigration enforcement.

Since its opening, media reports and stories from people detained affirm the conditions, rights violations, and deliberate opacity the ACLU warned would follow the opening of this site. Recent reporting reveals alarming conditions at Fort Bliss. The site has already racked up 60 violations of federal detention standards within its first 50 days of operation.

Each pod holds 60–70 people who report chronic food shortages, with meals sufficient for only about 50 individuals. People are forced to ration food, skip meals, or take turns eating — and when food is available, it is often spoiled or partially frozen, causing widespread vomiting, diarrhea, and rapid weight loss. Basic hygiene supplies are scarce: pods receive only a handful of rolls of toilet paper, and people go days without soap, clean clothing, or access to functioning showers. Detainees describe tents and bathrooms flooded with foul water mixed with urine and feces, creating squalid and unsafe living conditions.

Access to medical care is equally alarming. Individuals with serious conditions report going days or weeks without prescribed medication or having medical requests ignored until someone collapses. They are named here using pseudonyms to protect their identities. Josefina, who has diabetes, describes receiving insulin at erratic intervals that cause dangerous spikes and crashes in her blood sugar. Fernando went 15 days without his prescribed blood pressure medication. Others, including Ignacio, who previously suffered a stroke, report blurry vision and other clear warning signs while officers fail to provide timely care. Detainees consistently say that staff do not respond to medical requests for days and that people must faint or bleed before receiving attention.

Extreme and unlawful use of force is also prominent at Fort Bliss. Several detained individuals have described violent assaults by officers, including sexual abuse. Ignacio, Samuel, and others report officers crushing their testicles during beatings — a tactic used while people were already restrained or after they refused coerced removal to Mexico. Abel, Benjamin, and Eduardo also reported being slammed, stomped on, or beaten when they expressed fear of being sent to Mexico or when they simply requested their medication. These are not isolated incidents; they reflect a pattern of brutality that violates even ICE’s minimal standards.

Access to counsel and legal services is similarly inadequate. When Fort Bliss opened, it relied almost entirely on tablets for visitation and attorney communication, offering no privacy for confidential legal calls. The facility has since modified its protocols, but legal service providers are now allowed to meet with only ten detainees per day — an impossible limitation for a population of roughly 3,000. Many still lack working PINs to call attorneys, and the so-called law library contains no legal materials.

These rights violations — layered on top of hazardous conditions such as leaking water, unstable infrastructure, filthy tents, and ongoing construction — paint a grim picture.

If this is the state of a brand-new, billion-dollar facility within its first 90 days, the outlook for the next wave of military-base detention centers is dire. As detention sites open every few weeks nationwide, the ACLU anticipates that Fort Dix in New Jersey will be the next military site the Trump administration will use for mass immigration detention. There have also been reports of ICE scouting a Coast Guard base in New York for immigration detention.

What we are witnessing at Fort Bliss is not an anomaly; it is a warning. The conditions at Fort Bliss reflect a broader pattern of ICE evading oversight and accountability. The facility is a failed experiment that exposes the dangers of rapidly expanding detention, minimal safeguards, limited transparency, and virtually no oversight.

Despite clear congressional authority to conduct announced or unannounced visits to ICE facilities, ICE continues to enforce a policy that requires congressional offices to give them a seven-day notice ahead of detention visits and routinely denies them access to Fort Bliss and other sites. During the recent government shutdown, ICE even classified its congressional relations staff as “non-essential” and furloughed them. As a result, ICE detention facilities turned into information blackout sites with no direct channels to learn about what was happening inside.

The grim reality unfolding at Fort Bliss should serve as a stark warning: the Trump administration’s mass detention surge is not just unsustainable, but fundamentally dangerous. What is happening at Fort Bliss today foreshadows the humanitarian crises that will follow at every new facility opened under this unchecked strategy. Unless policymakers, courts, and the public intervene now, Fort Bliss will not be an outlier; it will be remembered as the template. Congress must hold the Trump administration accountable and ensure ICE immediately halt detention at Fort Bliss, and cease expanding the use of military resources for immigration detention and enforcement.