ICE detainee ‘heard’ inmate ‘choked to death’ – and was threatened to keep quiet: report

In January, a Cuban immigrant died in a Texas immigration detention facility from what the Trump administration alleged was an attempted suicide, but another detainee calls his death suspicious.

An immigrant detained at the same facility claims that he “heard” the Cuban immigrant being “choked to death,” but that he was threatened by an immigration enforcement officer to keep quiet about the incident, and the detainee granted Zeteo permission to share his account, though the outlet withheld his identity over safety concerns and identified him only by the pseudonym “Texas.”

The Cuban immigrant who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody was later identified as Geraldo Lunas Campos, who Texas told his attorney, Corlyn Marks, was being held in a room nearby to where he and nine other detainees were being held when the incident in question occurred.

“According to Texas, there were roughly 10 detainees, including himself, in ‘the punishment room,’ and they were listening through the wall to ‘everything that was happening’ during the moment of the killing,” Zeteo reported.

“This witness recalls that Lunas Campos ‘didn’t calm down’ and continued asking, again and again, for [his] medication. When Lunas Campos refused to stop asking for it, ‘the officers entered, grabbed him,’ Texas says, ‘and the last thing we could hear him say was: 'They are choking me, they are choking me.'"

Texas then revealed that just days later after the incident, “one officer arrived to threaten him.” The apparent ICE officer accused Texas of “falsely alarming people” by seeking out news coverage of Campos’ death. After Texas stood by his claim that he “heard” Campos being choked, the officer then threatened to relocate him to another detention facility, a threat that was ultimately made good on, according to Texas’ attorney.

Despite his claim of having heard a potential murder, Texas has yet to be interviewed about the matter by any law enforcement officials, his attorney told Zeteo.

“His optimism and resiliency for someone who’s been in jail for over a year is more than I would expect,” Marks told the outlet. “According to my client, he was never interviewed by any attorneys or officials regarding these events.”