El Paso Medical Examiner Rules Cuban ICE Detainee Geraldo Lunas Campos's Death a Homicide; Witness Says Guards Choked Him

The El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled that the January 3, 2026 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban national in ICE custody at Camp East Montana (Fort Bliss, Texas), was a homicide caused by asphyxia from neck and torso compression. The autopsy documented hemorrhage in muscles and connective tissues on the neck, scattered superficial abrasions, and signs of smaller hemorrhaging on the eyelids and skin of the neck. ICE had initially told the public Lunas Campos had died “during a suicide attempt” while staff “tried to save him.” A Salvadoran detainee, Santos Jesús Flores, witnessed the incident from his cell window and told the Associated Press that guards handcuffed Lunas Campos, tackled him, and placed him in a chokehold until he was unconscious. Per Flores: “After he stopped breathing, they removed the handcuffs.” At least five guards held him down. Lunas Campos had been in the United States since 1996.

Lunas Campos was the third person to die at Camp East Montana in the facility’s first six months of operation. The Washington Post reported on January 15 that the medical examiner was “likely to classify” the death as a homicide — a leak that preceded the formal January 21 ruling. ICE’s narrative shifted in real time as reporting progressed: from “medical distress” to “suicide attempt requiring staff intervention” to, post-leak, an admission that the medical examiner had ruled the death a homicide. The federal government has brought no charges against the guards. DHS subsequently moved to deport two detainees who witnessed the incident, including Flores. The case is part of the 2025 in-custody death cluster (33 deaths in 2025, the highest in ICE history) and a key reference point in the May 2026 mortality-frame constitutional litigation in Washington, Florida, California, New York, Hawaii, and West Virginia.