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[Autopsy finds Cuban immigrant in ICE custody died of homicide due to asphyxia]

#1

Off the Record / Re: ICE, ICE, baby - Immigrati...

Last post by Syt - Today at 04:05:48 AM

https://apnews.com/article/ice-immigration-detention-death-texas-f04b5cb76f175255e58b947f0e14bc12

Autopsy finds Cuban immigrant in ICE custody died of homicide due to asphyxia

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Cuban migrant held in solitary confinement at an immigration detention facility in Texas died after guards held him down and he stopped breathing, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday that ruled the death a homicide.

Geraldo Lunas Campos died Jan. 3 following an altercation with guards. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the 55-year-old father of four was attempting suicide and the staff tried to save him.

But a witness told The Associated Press last week that Lunas Campos was handcuffed as at least five guards held him down and one put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he was unconscious.

His death was one of at least three reported in little more than a month at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent facility in the desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss, an Army base.

The autopsy report by the El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office found Lunas Campos' body showed signs of a struggle, including abrasions on his chest and knees. He also had hemorrhages on his neck. The deputy medical examiner, Dr. Adam Gonzalez. determined the cause of death was asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.

The report said witnesses saw Lunas Campos "become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement." It did not elaborate on what happened during the struggle but cited evidence of injuries to his neck, head and torso associated with physical restraint. The report also noted the presence of petechial hemorrhages — tiny blood spots from burst capillaries that can be associated with intense strain or injury — in the eyelids and skin of the neck.

Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy report for AP, said the presence of petechiae in the eyes support the conclusion that asphyxia caused the death. Those injuries suggest pressure on the body and are often associated with such deaths, he said.

He said the contusions on Lunas Campos' body may reflect physical restraint and the neck injuries were consistent with a hand or knee on the neck.

The autopsy also found the presence of prescription antidepressant and antihistamine medications, adding that Lunas Campos had a history of bipolar disorder and anxiety. It made no mention of him attempting suicide.

Government provided changing accounts of what happened
ICE's initial account of the death, which included no mention of an altercation with guards, said Lunas Campos had become disruptive and staff moved him into a cellblock where detainees are held away from others.

"While in segregation, staff observed him in distress and contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance," the agency said in its Jan. 9 statement. "Medical staff responded, initiated lifesaving measures, and requested emergency medical services."

Lunas Campos was pronounced dead after paramedics arrived.

Last Thursday, after Lunas Campos' family was first informed the death was likely to be ruled a homicide, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin amended the government's account, saying he had attempted suicide and guards tried to help him.

"Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life," she said. "During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness."

After the final autopsy report was released Wednesday, McLaughlin issued a statement emphasizing that Lunas Campos was "a criminal illegal alien and convicted child sex predator."

New York court records show Lunas Campos was convicted in 2003 of sexual contact with a person under 11, a felony for which he was sentenced to one year in jail and placed on the state's sex offender registry. Lunas Campos was also sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervision in 2009 after being convicted of attempting to sell a controlled substance, according to the New York corrections records. He completed the sentence in January 2017.

"ICE takes seriously the health and safety of all those detained in our custody," McLaughlin said Wednesday, adding that the agency was investigating the death. DHS has not responded to questions about whether any outside law enforcement agency was also investigating.

Deaths put a spotlight on Camp East Montana

The AP reported in August that the $1.2 billion contract to build and operate Camp East Montana, expected to become the largest detention facility in the U.S., was awarded to a private contractor headquartered in a single-family home in Richmond, Virginia. The company, Acquisition Logistics LLC, had no prior experience running a corrections facility and has subcontracted with other companies to help operate the camp.

It was not immediately clear whether the guards present when Lunas Campos died were government employees or those of a private contractor.

A final determination of homicide by the medical examiner would typically be critical in determining whether any guards are held criminally or civilly liable. The fact that Lunas Campos died on an Army base could limit state and local officials' legal jurisdiction to investigate.

Lunas Campos was among the first detainees sent to Camp Montana East, arriving in September after ICE arrested him in Rochester, New York, where he lived for more than two decades. He was legally admitted to the U.S. in 1996, part of a wave of Cuban immigrants seeking to reach Florida by boat.

ICE said he was picked up in July as part of a planned immigration enforcement operation due to criminal convictions that made him eligible for removal.

In addition to Lunas Campos, ICE announced that on Dec. 3 an immigrant from Guatemala held in Camp East Montana died after being transferred to a El Paso hospital for care. While the cause of death was still pending, the agency said Francisco Gaspar-Andres, 48, was suspected to have died of liver and kidney failure.

On Sunday, ICE announced that Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old immigrant from Nicaragua, died at Camp East Montana on Jan. 14 of a "presumed suicide." The agency said Diaz was detained by ICE earlier this month during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Unlike with the two prior deaths, Diaz's body wasn't sent to the county medical examiner in El Paso. McLaughlin said Wednesday that the autopsy for Diaz is being performed at the Army medical center at Fort Bliss. DHS again did not respond to questions about whether any agency other than ICE will investigate the death.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, called on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons to brief Congress about the recent deaths.

"DHS must preserve all evidence — including halting their effort to deport the witnesses," Escobar said Wednesday. "I reiterate my call for Camp East Montana to be shut down and for the contract with the corporation running it to be terminated."

#2

Off the Record / Re: ICE, ICE, baby - Immigrati...

Last post by Syt - Today at 02:51:25 AM

Either way, I assume they'll argue that the final deportation order is already judge-approved so an additional warrant is superfluous?

#3

Off the Record / Re: ICE, ICE, baby - Immigrati...

Last post by Syt - Today at 02:50:40 AM

Sorry, guys. I have failed you

[Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says]

#4

Off the Record / Re: ICE, ICE, baby - Immigrati...

Last post by Tonitrus - Today at 02:47:28 AM

 

https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-trump-00d0ab0338e82341fd91b160758aeb2d

Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says

#5

Off the Record / Re: ICE, ICE, baby - Immigrati...

Last post by celedhring - Today at 02:47:16 AM

Didn't CDM already run a thread with this exact same title years ago? Prescient he was.

Wherever he is, I hope he's doing well.

[Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says]

#6

Off the Record / ICE, ICE, baby - Immigration E...

Last post by Syt - Today at 02:42:19 AM

Was going to put this into the Shooting Gallery, but I think ICE might deserve its own thread at this point.

https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-trump-00d0ab0338e82341fd91b160758aeb2d

Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.

The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.

The shift comes as the Trump administration dramatically expands immigration arrests nationwide, deploying thousands of officers under a mass deportation campaign that is already reshaping enforcement tactics in cities such as Minneapolis.

For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time when arrests are accelerating under the administration's immigration crackdown.

The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train new ICE officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement the president's immigration crackdown. New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo's guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure.

It is unclear how broadly the directive has been applied in immigration enforcement operations. The Associated Press witnessed ICE officers ramming through the front door of the home of a Liberian man, Garrison Gibson, with a deportation order from 2023 in Minneapolis on Jan. 11, wearing heavy tactical gear and with their rifles drawn.

Documents reviewed by The AP revealed that the agents only had an administrative warrant — meaning there was no judge who authorized the raid on private property.

The change is almost certain to meet legal challenges and stiff criticism from advocacy groups and immigrant-friendly state and local governments that have spent years successfully urging people not to open their doors unless ICE shows them a warrant signed by a judge.

The Associated Press obtained the memo and whistleblower complaint from an official in Congress, who shared it on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive documents. The AP verified the authenticity of the accounts in the complaint.

The memo, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, and dated May 12, 2025, says: "Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose."

The memo does not detail how that determination was made nor what its legal repercussions might be.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in an e-mailed statement to the AP that everyone the department serves with an administrative warrant has already had "full due process and a final order of removal."

She said the officers issuing those warrants have also found probable cause for the person's arrest. She said the Supreme Court and Congress have "recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement," without elaborating. McLaughlin did not respond to questions about whether ICE officers entered a person's home since the memo was issued, relying solely on an administrative warrant and if so, how often.

Recent arrests shine a light on tactics

Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit legal organization that assists workers exposing wrongdoings, said in the whistleblower complaint obtained by The Associated Press that it represents two anonymous U.S. government officials "disclosing a secretive — and seemingly unconstitutional — policy directive."

A wave of recent high-profile arrests, many unfolding at private homes and businesses and captured on video, has placed a spotlight on immigration arrest tactics, including officers' use of proper warrants.

Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only warrants signed by judges carry that authority.

All law enforcement operations — including those conducted by ICE and Customs and Border Protection — are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures.

People can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private property if the agents only have an administrative warrant, with some limited exceptions.

Memo shown to 'select' officials

The memo says ICE officers can forcibly enter homes and arrest immigrants using just a signed administrative warrant known as an I-205 if they have a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals or a district judge or magistrate judge.

The memo says officers must first knock on the door and share who they are and why they're at the residence. They're limited in the hours they can go into the home — after 6 a.m. and before 10 p.m. The people inside must be given a "reasonable chance to act lawfully." But if that doesn't work, the memo says, they can use force to go in.

"Should the alien refuse admittance, ICE officers and agents should use only a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien's residence, following proper notification of the officer or agent's authority and intent to enter," the memo reads.

The memo is addressed to all ICE personnel. But it has been shown only to "select DHS officials" who then shared it with some employees who were told to read it and return it, Whistleblower Aid wrote in the disclosure.

One of the two whistleblowers was allowed to view the memo only in the presence of a supervisor and then had to give it back. That person was not allowed to take notes. A whistleblower was able to access the document and lawfully disclose it to Congress, Whistleblower Aid said.

Although the memo was issued in May, David Kligerman, senior vice president and special counsel at Whistleblower Aid, said it took time for its clients to find a "safe and legal path to disclose it to lawmakers and the American people."

Memo says ICE officers are told to rely solely on administrative warrants

ICE has been rapidly hiring thousands of new deportation officers to carry out the president's mass deportation agenda. They're trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia.

During a visit there by The Associated Press in August, ICE officials said repeatedly that new officers were being trained to follow the Fourth Amendment.

But according to the whistleblowers' account, newly hired ICE officers are being told they can rely solely on administrative warrants to enter homes to make arrests, even though that conflicts with written Homeland Security training materials.

Lindsay Nash, a law professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in New York, said the memo "flies in the face" of what the Fourth Amendment protects against and what ICE itself has historically said are its authorities.

She said there's an "enormous potential for overreach, for mistakes and we've seen that those can happen with very, very serious consequences."

The memo itself: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26499371-dhs-ice-memo-1-21-26/

#7

Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 01:58:51 AM

Seems like Rutte is continuing with the Daddy Trump approach. Just because it hasn't worked at all doesn't mean it won't suddenly start working, I guess.

It's just what he does.

Yep. You responded with hostility and he backed down. That is how it's done. The Canadians get this.

The British and the Democrats are too stupid unfortunately.

To take these together I think this is sort of a Rorschach test.

Here the lesson everyone is drawing is confirmation of the opinion they had on day one which is about responding with hostility and pushing back etc.

At the same time you see others quote Trump's statement and the "very productive meeting" with Mark Rutte. It seems particularly common from German analysts that it was the "quiet" "prudent" diplomacy of Meloni and Merz and Rutte v the populist bluster of Macron that won out. (And I would add that for all the comments about Starmer specifically here - his approach was not somehow unique and aberrant it was the same as Merz, Meloni, Rutte, Tusk etc).

I think both are plausible - and it may well be both. It's not 100% but I also think an element is Trump the reality TV producer - generating conflict to resolve as part of a narrative arc and make great TV.

A combination maybe.
Talking softly is more impressive if you're willing to wield the stick.  Something the western Europeans kinda forgot (as if it was cultural ptsd induced amnesia)

#8

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 01:47:27 AM

Which is what De Wever also mentioned in that little video I posted over in the Greenland thread: Europe is not sovereign digitally and it needs to be. The Chinese are because they've been smart (and cutthroat, and thieving too) about it.

#9

Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...

Last post by Valmy - Today at 12:52:30 AM

That said, there's not a chance in hell America "acquires" Greenland without paying the Iron Price at this point. There might be, best case, some sort of window-dressing of the status-quo that allows Trump to declare shart of the deal. The Nordic tripwire forces will remain indefinitely and NATO with America in it is dead because there's not a living soul who believes Americans would ever honor an article 5 activation by a member state at this point.

All those US military bases are still in Europe. Just saying.

#10

Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...

Last post by Valmy - Today at 12:48:46 AM

So Mark Rutte and Donald Trump has agreed on a framework agreement. It'll be interesting to see what they're talking about, but so far there are no reports on whether Denmark or Greenland has agreed to anything.

I am curious what Mark Rutte is able to negotiate considering he is not an elected leader of Denmark or any EU country.

I imagine he just sat down with Trump and pointed out what anybody with a brain already knew. The US already could do whatever it wants in Greenland for its security. American companies already could do business extracting minerals there. The status quo already gave him everything he wanted.

So I guess he can insist he won some big victory. By gaining nothing we already didn't have.