ICE: Detainee 'Attempted Suicide.' Witness: 'Guard Choked Him.'
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quickly attributed the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos to a suicide attempt, a convenient narrative for an agency with a troubling history of in-custody deaths and alleged abuses. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's preliminary finding of homicide via 'asphyxia from chest and neck compression' (per the AP) starkly contradicts ICE's PR spin, suggesting
a witness account of a guard-applied chokehold is closer to the grim truth. This isn't an isolated incident; deaths in ICE detention are a regular occurrence, with 11 reported in 2023 alone and 209 since 2003, many under similarly murky circumstances, often attributed to 'neglect' or 'suicide,' allowing systemic issues to persist. One might wonder at the government's consistent ability to describe
alleged extrajudicial killings within its facilities as anything but. When the official story clashes directly with forensic evidence and eyewitness testimony, how many more 'suicide attempts' will the public be asked to believe before accountability becomes part of the detention center's policies?