Hundreds of 911 calls placed from inside Camp East Montana — the largest immigration detention facility in the United States — paint a disturbing picture of daily life behind the walls of the sprawling Texas complex. Records obtained through public records requests reveal a steady stream of emergencies: attempted suicides, violent altercations between detainees, untreated medical conditions, and people pleading for help that often arrives too late.
The calls came at a rate of nearly one per day over a five-month period, each one a snapshot of a system under extraordinary strain. In one recording, a detainee describes chest pains that had gone unaddressed for days. In another, a caller reports a man who has barricaded himself in a bathroom and is threatening self-harm. Staff can be heard in the background of several calls, sometimes calm, sometimes clearly overwhelmed.
Federal Inspectors Found Widespread Violations
The 911 records align with findings from a required ICE inspection that found conditions at Camp East Montana violated at least 60 federal standards for immigration detention. The violations spanned medical care, mental health services, grievance procedures, and use-of-force documentation — a breadth of failures that suggests systemic dysfunction rather than isolated incidents.
Medical care deficiencies were among the most alarming. Inspectors found that sick call requests were going unanswered for days, chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension were being inadequately managed, and mental health screenings at intake were cursory at best. For a facility holding thousands of people — many of whom arrived after long journeys with little or no medical care — those gaps can be fatal.
In just the first three weeks of 2026, six people died in ICE custody nationally, a figure that has drawn sharp criticism from immigrant rights organizations and members of Congress.
Detention Population at Historic Highs
The conditions at Camp East Montana exist against the backdrop of an unprecedented expansion of immigration detention. The number of people held in ICE facilities rose nearly 75 percent in 2025, climbing from roughly 40,000 at the start of the year to 66,000 by December — the highest level ever recorded in the agency’s history.
That growth has pushed existing facilities past their design capacity and driven ICE to contract with county jails and private prison companies to secure additional bed space. In Iowa, one county jail saw its ICE contract funding increase by 75 percent — from $479,000 to $839,000 — as the agency scrambled to house the surge. Similar expansions have played out in rural counties across the South and Midwest, where local governments see immigration detention contracts as a revenue lifeline.
But the rapid expansion has outpaced the agency’s ability to ensure adequate conditions. A report from the American Immigration Council found that ICE’s detention system has become “increasingly unaccountable,” with oversight mechanisms failing to keep pace with the growing number of facilities and detainees.
Legal Challenges Mounting
The courts are pushing back. In Michigan, federal judges have granted the majority of habeas corpus petitions filed since January 2025, ordering the government to provide bond hearings within days or release detainees outright. More than 800 such petitions have been filed in Michigan’s U.S. District Courts alone, creating a wave of litigation that is straining both the judiciary and ICE’s legal resources.
The rulings have centered on due process concerns — specifically, whether people can be held indefinitely without a meaningful opportunity to argue for their release before a judge. For many detainees, particularly those with no criminal record who are seeking asylum, prolonged detention without a hearing amounts to punishment without conviction.
Families trying to locate someone in ICE custody face their own set of obstacles. The agency’s online detainee locator is frequently inaccurate or slow to update, and transfers between facilities can happen without notice, leaving family members and attorneys scrambling to track down their loved ones.
The Human Cost
Behind the statistics and inspection reports are individual stories of suffering. The 911 calls from Camp East Montana capture voices that are afraid, in pain, and desperate for someone to listen. Whether the system can reform fast enough to prevent more tragedies is a question that grows more urgent with each passing month.
Understanding how bonds and release mechanisms work in the immigration context is critical for families navigating the system, though the process differs significantly from the criminal bail system most people are familiar with.
