Research Shows: Tents of Despair - 911 Transcripts and the Ramsingh Case

Almost every day, an emergency call came in. For months. From a place that is officially intended as short-term housing but has in fact become a standstill in life for many. Camp East Montana in Texas, the largest ICE deportation detention center in the United States, lies on the edge of El Paso on the grounds of Fort Bliss. Six long white tents in the desert. Thousands of people in colored uniforms and plastic shoes. And behind those tarps, a reality that reveals itself in 911 recordings, court files, and conversations with those affected.

The calls report suicide attempts, seizures, fights, chest pains, head injuries. A pregnant woman with severe back pain and COVID. Men who injure themselves. One bangs his head against the wall after expressing suicidal thoughts. Another weeps after being attacked by a fellow detainee. At least six documented cases of self-harm with emergency calls. Two deaths within just a few days in January.

Owen Ramsingh, 45 years old, formerly a property manager in Columbia, Missouri, was detained there for several weeks before being deported to the Netherlands in February. He says: Every day felt like a week, every week like a month, every month like a year. The camp was a thousand percent worse than a prison.

Ramsingh came to the United States at the age of five. His Dutch mother married an American soldier. In 2015 he married his current wife Diana, a U.S. citizen.. In September he was detained at Chicago O’Hare Airport while returning from a family visit. The reason: a drug conviction from 1996 dating back to his youth. He was 16 years old at the time. He was among the first to be taken to Camp East Montana. He remained there for weeks because his deportation was delayed. Reporting uncovered that the agency “lost” his Dutch passport. Personal belongings, including gold jewelry, also disappeared.

The family is deliberately not making information about the cause of death public. The name of the second daughter is also not being disclosed at the express request of the relatives. His wife and the second daughter will also arrive in the Netherlands in the coming days.

His deportation brought him to Schiphol on February 9. Forty years after leaving as a child, he returned to a country that was little more than a memory to him. His detention fell during a time already marked by loss. On March 21, 2025, his 21-year-old daughter had died. During his months in detention, he saw neither his wife nor his children. For one week, his family did not know where he was. He says the combination of his daughter’s death and the isolation in the camp pushed him to the brink. Now he is trying to begin again in the Netherlands, wants to learn the language and work. His hope is directed toward a later time: not to return, but one day to be allowed to visit his daughter’s grave in the United States.

Owen describes overcrowded, noisy sleeping areas. Vermin. Dirty showers. Food in small portions, partly inedible. Hunger led to theft among detainees. Theft led to fights. He says the conditions destroyed his psyche. Particularly disturbing for him was a conversation he says he overheard: A guard allegedly spoke of an internal bet on which detainee would be the next to die by suicide. 500 dollars at stake. The agency denies this, calling his account false without disclosing how it reviewed the matter. On January 3, according to ICE, security personnel responded to a 55-year-old Cuban who wanted to injure himself. He was restrained in handcuffs. The medical examiner later classified the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos as a homicide by suffocation. On January 14, staff reported the suicide of a 36-year-old Nicaraguan who had shortly before been arrested at work in Minnesota.

The numbers show a different picture than the political rhetoric. Our reporting found that 80 percent of those detained there have no prior convictions. Many have lived in the United States for years or decades. According to ICE, the average length of stay is nine days, but many remain for months because court proceedings are ongoing or deportations fail for logistical reasons. We are currently handling more than 40 cases there.

Roland Kusi, 31, fled Cameroon in 2022 due to political violence. In September he was arrested in Chicago during an appointment with his wife, who serves in the Army National Guard. He says it is psychologically almost unbearable. One thinks constantly, searches for a solution, finds none. It wears a person down. A Cuban man in his fifties reports that during six weeks of detention he waited in vain for medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and an enlarged prostate. An officer offered him ibuprofen and suggested he voluntarily depart. There was not enough for everyone, he was told. If he went to Mexico or Cuba, he could obtain his medication there. Out of fear of dying, he agreed and was deported to Ciudad Juárez. His wife and his eleven-year-old son remained in El Paso. A legal proceeding is currently underway with the aim of securing his return.

More than 130 emergency calls between mid-August and January 20 document medical emergencies. At least twenty times the issue involved seizures, some with head injuries. Men report kicks to the ear and ribs. One was unable to move his left eye after an attack. A woman in her twelfth week of pregnancy had received no prenatal examination and suffered severe pain. Internal tensions are also audible. In one recording, a doctor sharply rebukes a colleague for wanting to return a suicidal detainee to the camp instead of taking him to the emergency room. It later turns out that two patients had been confused. After another suicide attempt in an isolation room, a shaken employee can be heard, to whom a security supervisor assures that such a thing must not happen.

The camp was hastily erected last summer. The contract went to Acquisition Logistics LLC from Virginia, a company with no prior experience operating ICE facilities. The contract volume can reach up to 1.3 billion dollars. Subcontractors include Akima Global Services for security and Loyal Source for medical care. Akima did not respond to inquiries, Loyal Source declined to comment. In September 2025, a required ICE inspection found violations of at least 60 federal standards. The report, however, was never released.Also a more recent review by the Office of Detention Oversight has remained under wraps. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security rejected allegations of inadequate conditions and stated that the facility is regularly cleaned and that detainees receive food, water, and medical care.

See also: Our Investigations Show: Not Paid, Not Treated – How ICE Is Effectively Shutting Down Medical Care

The reality on the ground appears different. When it rains, water drips through the ceilings of the windowless tents. Sunlight is available only during short outings once or twice a week into a narrow yard. Diseases spread quickly. Due to a measles outbreak, the camp was closed to visitors until at least March 19, as Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of El Paso announced. She had previously been informed of serious hygienic and medical deficiencies and had been presented with research documents. During one of her visits, occupancy had temporarily dropped below 1,900 after tuberculosis cases had also been reported.

Escobar speaks of a place that should not be operated. One female detainee showed her scrambled eggs that were still frozen in the middle. After juice, fruit, and milk were eliminated, protests erupted. A man from Ecuador showed her a broken arm, weeks after a violent arrest in Minnesota. The bones were visible beneath the skin. When she asked whether he had requested help, he answered: every day, all day. They only give him aspirin. While billions flow into the expansion of deportation infrastructure, behind the fences a reality of fear, pain, and powerlessness is growing. The 911 calls are sober transcripts. They do not sound like political debates. They sound like shortness of breath, like screams, like the sentence: We need help immediately. And they raise a question that cannot be answered with denials: How many emergency calls will it take before someone listens?