U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar welcomed acting ICE director David J. Venturella to Camp East Montana as part of her ongoing efforts to boost oversight and accountability at the deficiency-plagued ICE detention center in El Paso.
Escobar, D-El Paso, made her ninth oversight visit to the detention center alongside Venturella on June 12 to meet with detainees. She reminded the acting director that the facility was meant to be a short-term detention site prior to deportation, but many of the people held there had been there for months.
“I literally said to him as we were getting ready to walk in, ‘you’re going to hear from people who have been here for a month,'” Escobar recalled telling the acting ICE director before entering. “‘This facility should not be a detention facility for long-term stay. That should be unacceptable to everyone.'”
During the visit, they met for half an hour with five men who were detained at the facility. Three or four detainees had been held at Camp East Montana for at least three months.
The oversight visit was Escobar’s first since Amentum Services took over the contract to manage the detention facility in April.
Escobar met with Venturella prior to the visit. She said that she had told him that she wanted him to understand that the detention center is not “remotely meeting federal standards.”
Venturella, the former executive at the Geo Group private prison company, took over the position from Todd Lyon in May. He said the conversations were key for making “informed decisions.”
“Today’s visit to Camp East Montana was productive and informative,” Venturella said in his statement following the visit. “I appreciated the opportunity to hear directly from personnel and stakeholders about challenges and opportunities, hear different perspectives, and exchange ideas about the future of our operations in the region. Although not everyone shares the same views, I appreciate the thoughtful and candid feedback provided throughout the visit.”
Government watchdogs find fraud, negligence
Escobar’s brief oversight visit followed the release of the damning report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office about the facility. The report echoes many of the concerns the congresswoman has raised about the massive immigration detention center since it opened in August 2025.
Among the findings, the GAO report found that ICE opened the detention center without meeting key standards and with little oversight, as well as examples of waste, including the purchase of food during the two weeks after the facility opened when there were no detainees. The site was also paying for meals at the detention center’s full capacity when it held far fewer people.
“The contract requires ICE to pay the full cost of meals and operational services for 5,000 people, even when the facility’s population is far lower,” the report found. “For example, the facility held about 1,600 detained non-citizens at the end of February 2026. This resulted in millions of dollars of waste.”
The report also found that the previous contractor did not provide a cause-of-death report related to the Jan. 3 homicide of detainee Geraldo Campos Lunas. Evidence in the case was also either missing or destroyed.
In another case, the report found that an employee brought a loaded gun into work that was later reported stolen at the facility.
The majority of the issues found in the report occurred during Acquisitions Logistics’ management of the center. In April, the $1.2 billion facility management contract was transferred to Amentum Services.
Escobar expressed relief at the findings of the report, but the news of a stolen gun and the purchase of food at a time the facility was not holding anyone was especially worrying. She also points out that the report omits several other issues she has documented during her oversight visits, including repeated failures to provide janitorial and laundry services.
“It is truly the tip of the iceberg,” Escobar said. “The deficiencies, the fraud, the waste and the unacceptable standards that exist there today.”
Escobar said the findings in the report that were “most concerning” were the revelations that the detention center was not providing proper medical attention and that medical staff was not carrying out proper tuberculosis testing of detainees prior to December 2025, exposing both those held at the facility and medical staff to the infectious disease. She pointed out a lack of proper communication with the El Paso Public Health Department exposed the El Paso community to outbreaks.
“When you have a contractor that doesn’t have the infrastructure … not only is the contractor not protecting other detainees, but it is not protecting the El Pasoans who work inside the facility,” Escobar said. “That is a major issue for all of us.”
Amendments in Congress for accountability
Escobar spoke out about the conditions in Camp East Montana and the GAO report during the June 10 House Appropriations Committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security Bill.
She proposed six amendments to the bill to hold the Trump administration accountable for conditions at Camp East Montana and for border wall construction in the El Paso sector. Two of the amendments were accepted by the committee.
The Fifth Amendment, which was accepted, directs the Office of Professional Responsibility to submit a report detailing the findings of the investigation into the homicide of Campos Lunas. The Sixth Amendment directs ICE to recover funds it overpaid to contractors for meal services that were not needed.
“I did help shape this bill,” Escobar said. “But it is still fundamentally deficient when it comes to the reforms needed and we should not be giving DHS a single penny more when they are still sitting on $100 million of taxpayer money.”
She said she will not vote for the bill. But she is looking for other ways to get accountability for what is happening in the detention center, especially if Democrats flip the House in November.
“Believe me, there will be a robust emphasis on transparency and accountability,” Escobar said.
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:jdabbott@usatodayco.com; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: US Rep. Escobar pushes for answers at ICE detention site after report
Reporting by Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times | USA TODAY Network
