A Guatemalan man has become the first person to die in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Fort Bliss military base in Texas. His wife of 25 years was deported from the same camp and was denied the opportunity to see her dying husband.
Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, 48, died at an El Paso hospital on Dec. 3 as Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates pushed for the camp to be closed amid accusations of inhumane conditions. The Department of Homeland Security said such accusations are “absolutely false.”
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ICE suspects Gaspar-Andrés’ cause of death was “natural liver and kidney failure,” adding: “From the moment they learned of his health crisis, ICE medical personnel ensured he received consistent, high-quality care.”
The agency issued a press release detailing his escalating medical complaints during his 10 weeks in Texas, saying he was treated for “multiple ailments” at the camp in November, including flu-like symptoms, bleeding gums, fever, jaundice and high blood pressure.
“On November 14, an immigration judge ordered Gaspar-Andres deported to Guatemala,” according to a news release from ICE.
As his condition worsened, he was hospitalized on November 16. He became infected and his condition eventually worsened, leading to organ failure, internal bleeding and death.
On Nov. 28, his wife (now a widow), Lucía Pedro Juan, was flown to Guatemala after also being held at the Eastern Montana ICE tent facility at Fort Bliss, according to reports she provided to the El Paso Times.
The Trump administration earlier this year ordered the construction of the Eastern Montana camp to house migrants on military bases.
The El Paso Times tracked Pedro Juan to the town of Santa Eulalia in Guatemala’s western highlands, where she told reporters who visited her that after being arrested at a traffic stop in south Florida in September, she and her husband were taken separately to Fort Bliss, where they had lived for years and had five children.
“I never saw him again, I never spoke to him or heard his voice again. They did terrible things to us,” she tearfully told The Texas Press in an in-depth interview.
Pedro Juan also said she ultimately agreed to be deported to Guatemala because she feared she might die in the harsh conditions in the U.S. camp.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to inquiries and requests for comment from The Guardian about Pedro Juan.
Gaspar-Andrés and Pedro Juan each crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization 18 years ago and lived near Homestead, Florida, where they raised their families and eventually ran a plant nursery as undocumented members of the community. But on Labor Day this September, they were stopped by police while out shopping for groceries, and they were immediately detained.
After initial detention, Gaspar-Andres was taken to a Miami hospital for alcohol treatment and later transferred to a Texas detention facility, ICE said.
An autopsy report from the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Gaspar-Andres’ death was natural and attributed it to “complications of alcoholic cirrhosis,” an advanced stage of liver damage caused by long-term alcohol consumption.
Guatemala’s foreign ministry said it was informed by ICE in early December of Gaspar-Andrés’s deteriorating health.
Ligia Reyes, the Guatemalan consul in Del Rio, Texas, told Emisoras Unidas in Guatemala: “We demand an investigation into the cause (of the death) and have informed the family of the repatriation process.”
ICE and DHS officials did not provide additional details or clarification on the medical timeline and treatment of Gaspar-Andres beyond what was outlined in the ICE press release. The ICE office in El Paso directed the Guardian to the autopsy report.
“On December 3, Francisco Gaspar-Andrés died of natural causes from alcoholic cirrhosis at Providence East Hospital. ICE medical personnel ensured that he received ongoing, high-quality medical care,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email.
“This is alarmist clickbait,” the email said of the Guardian’s inquiry about conditions at the Fort Bliss camp and the Gaspar Andres Care Center. “As our brave ICE law enforcement faces a more than 1,150 percent increase in attacks against them, the Guardian has chosen to discredit them. All detainees receive proper meals, medical care, showers, and the opportunity to communicate with attorneys and their families. This is a long-standing practice of aliens entering ICE from From the moment of detention, this is the best medical care many foreigners will ever receive in their lives.”
Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso and Fort Bliss, repeatedly wrote to ICE parent agency Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons to complain about conditions at the Fort Bliss camp.
“While DHS’ claims of inhumane and abhorrent conditions at facilities like Camp East Montana are ‘absolutely false,’ my own visits and discussions with detainees prove otherwise,” she said in a Dec. 9 letter.
“Never has an administration so carelessly mocked the rule of law while hypocritically advocating for values like law and order. From their denial of true oversight visits to the brutal treatment of detainees at this facility, it is clear that Camp Eastern Montana is not being run effectively or humanely.”
Escobar said in a Dec. 19 letter that she had not yet received a response to the first two letters and that she still had “serious concerns” about the operations and conditions at the facility.
“I am outraged that ICE’s negligence resulted in the first known in-custody death at the facility since my last visit to Camp East, Montana,” she wrote.
She added of Gaspar-Andres: “He repeatedly sought medical care throughout his stay; despite needing treatment for increasingly severe symptoms, Eastern Montana camp staff only transferred Gaspar-Andres to a local hospital when his condition became critical.”
Escobar is among a group of U.S. representatives who are suing the government for imposing new restrictions or even preventing state lawmakers from exercising their constitutional rights to observe ICE detention facilities.
A federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration cannot bar members of Congress from making unannounced visits to such facilities.
Escobar further wrote in the Dec. 19 letter: “During my most recent supervisory visit to the Eastern Montana camp on Nov. 24, I again heard from detainees that some of the issues that my staff and I have been aware of since August have not yet been fully addressed. Issues remain, including food spoilage, lack of access to necessary medications, lack of regular access to recreation areas, and inconsistent laundry and cleaning services for uniforms.”
She said she believed the camp was understaffed and detainees told her they struggled to receive updates on their legal cases and were held for far longer than the 15 days expected in such a short-term facility.
“What kind of meaningful oversight is happening in East Camp, Montana,” she asked in her letter.
Experts have warned that the federal oversight system for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees complaints about civil rights violations, including immigration detention, is completely broken, potentially laying the groundwork for the Trump administration to abuse people with impunity. This is a record number of people detained by ICE nationwide.
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Shortly after Gaspar-Andrés’ death, national and local human rights and immigration advocacy groups accused Eastern Montana camp officials of mistreating detainees in a letter to senior ICE and Fort Bliss officials.
Savannah Kumar, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas, said his deteriorating health was consistent with allegations in the letter that a serious or even life-threatening condition was not being properly treated.
“This raises serious concerns about whether the Fort Bliss facility is on the verge of additional deaths, particularly the medical neglect and lack of hospital visits described to us by detainees we interviewed,” she said.
Eunice Hyunhye Cho, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said medical conditions at camps in eastern Montana are “worse” than those noted in the group’s “Fatal Failure” report, which found that 95 percent of detainee deaths between 2017 and 2021 were preventable.
Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of the Inter-American Immigrant Advocacy Center, said Gaspar-Andrés’ dramatic deterioration could not “happen overnight” and regretted that her organization was not informed of his health status so he could be rushed to a hospital sooner.
“It’s definitely taking a toll on our team … the fact that this gentleman could have taken advantage of all the publicity we put into other people’s cases to have him leave the hospital just to see a doctor or even die with dignity,” she said.