Wednesday, Mar. 18 — Virginia U.S. Rep. Don Beyer issued the following statement today on conditions at an ICE detention facility in Texas:

“The Associated Press published an investigation into Camp East Montana, the nation’s largest ICE detention facility, built on the outskirts of El Paso at a former U.S. Army base. What they found was deeply disturbing.

“Nearly one 911 call per day for five months. Suicide attempts. Seizures. A pregnant woman in pain with no prenatal care. Detainees losing dangerous amounts of weight because of insufficient food. A measles outbreak. Medical requests going unanswered for weeks.

“One detainee, a legal permanent resident who had lived in the United States for four decades, described the facility as worse than a prison.

“Eighty percent of the people detained at this facility have no criminal record. They were caught up in a dragnet, warehoused in overcrowded tents in the Chihuahuan Desert, and cut off from basic medical care and due process.

“The administration awarded a $1.3 billion contract to a Virginia company with no prior experience running an ICE detention facility, and the federal inspection report has never been made public. This lack of oversight raises serious concerns about accountability.

“I have always believed that how a government treats the most vulnerable people in its custody says everything about its values. What is happening at Camp East Montana does not reflect the country I know we can be, and I am not going to stop saying so. This is the reality I am fighting to change.”