A Boeing 737 descends over West Texas on its approach to El Paso International Airport.
At first glance, the jet looks like any other commercial aircraft. But this plane appears freshly painted, bright white and without any logos on the body or tail. The flight also does not appear on public flight-tracking apps.
Scripps News drove to the airport as the plane landed and watched it taxi to a remote area away from the terminal, where mobile stairs were brought to the front door.
Minutes later, mostly men — along with a few women — stepped off the aircraft. All were wearing hand and ankle cuffs as they slowly walked down the stairs and boarded two white buses.
They are the latest group of immigrant detainees bound for the Camp East Montana detention center, dubbed “Lone Star Lockup,” on the grounds of the Fort Bliss Army base.
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Researching the tail number on the plane shows it is a charter flight operated by Avelo Airlines, just one of the companies making money off the holding of migrants at a sprawling temporary complex set to become the most populated immigration detention center in the nation.
It is a tent city largely built and operated by an array of for-profit companies that have not been easy to identify.
As the detention camp has grown, so have reports of problems.
Scripps News spoke by phone to detainees inside the complex, including a married Honduran man and father of a six-year-old son.
The man, who Scripps News agreed not to identify so he could speak freely, says he has been held at Camp East Montana ever since immigration authorities arrested him during a fast-food run in the Boston area.
"The conditions here are very, very bad," the detainee told Scripps News. "We don't have personal care. I've been here for about three weeks with a great pain in my throat and my chest. They say they can't take me to the doctor. It has to be an emergency."
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Complaints about the detention center have become familiar to Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, whose district includes Fort Bliss.
"I have heard nothing but horror stories from detainees about Camp East Montana," Escobar tells Scripps News. "We have not gotten accurate information from ICE."
She is one of the few outsiders allowed to visit the camp. After speaking with detainees and subcontractors working there, she sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem listing her concerns about contractor staffing.
Her letter asked Homeland Security to connect with the local health department to address reports of sickness.
"Several people told us the water smelled bad and made them ill," Escobar's letter to Noem states.
Escobar says it's a sign that contractors are failing to provide adequate care to immigrants in custody.
"When the water is making them sick, when they're not able to access medical care, which I heard directly from one of the detainees≈, (then) the contractor is not meeting the scope or the expectation of the contract," Escobar said.
Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas, a legal aid nonprofit providing on-site counsel to migrants held in El Paso, equated Camp East Montana the "wild west."
"(It) breaks the mold," she said. "You have a rotating door of people who do not know what they're doing."
The Trump administration's push for mass deportation has led the government to seek and pay contractors to help house the surge of arrested immigrants as they await their day in court for deportation proceedings.
The administration has refused to share detailed contracts for the construction and operation of Camp East Montana, but federal records reviewed by Scripps News show a company called Acquisition Logistics LLC appears to be the lead contractor, awarded $1.2 billion from taxpayers to "establish and operate" what is described as a "short-term detention facility."
Acquisition Logistics, the company holding this important contract, lists a single-family home in Henrico, Virginia, as its headquarters.
The business has a website banner that reads, "site maintenance in progress."
Scripps News found no record showing the company has operated any detention centers in the past.
No one from Acquisition Logistics LLC would return calls or emails from Scripps News.
Escobar says it has been impossible to identify the subcontractors that are part of Camp East Montana, with an estimated 300 employees working at the site.
Scripps News has confirmed that Disaster Management Group, based in Jupiter, Florida, built the soft-sided structures as a subcontractor for Acquisition Logistics.
Detainees tell Scripps News that during heavy rains, water leaks into their bunk rooms, soaking mattresses.
"When it rains a lot, there are many beds that get wet, and there is a lot of water," said the detainee from Honduras. "It's terrible that all the people on the top bunk beds get wet."
Disaster Management Group did not answer questions about why these structures would already be leaking.
OSHA is investigating a fatal workplace incident at the site in July after the death of a Disaster Management Group employee.
In 2024, the Labor Department also found Disaster Management Group and its contractors "violated federal law" for failing to pay full wages and benefits to workers at a New Jersey military base.
"It really comes down to how these contracts were awarded and how these people are being trained and it doesn't seem to matter," Garza said.
Noem has not responded with answers to the questions in Escobar's letter. The congresswoman says a lack of transparency by DHS makes accountability impossible.
"Frankly, the agency should be providing oversight over its contractors but that's not happening adequately," she said. "The American taxpayer is paying billions of dollars to these contractors who very likely are not holding up their end of the bargain."
As for other subcontractors, Avelo Airlines, which flew the plane of detainees, says the flight was part of its contract with CSI Aviation, a company listing a Killeen, Texas, address, awarded a $562 million contract to provide flights for "ICE's enforcement and removal operations of illegal aliens."
DHS did not answer a list of questions from Scripps News about contractors at Camp East Montana and instead sent a statement that said in part, "Any claim that there are 'inhumane' conditions at ICE detention centers are (sic) categorically false ... Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE."
Congress has allocated billions of taxpayer dollars to open more ICE detention centers to house tens of thousands more immigrants suspected of being in the country without authorization.
Camp East Montana is set to become the largest holding center with a capacity to detain 5,000 immigrants.
