By MORGAN LEE, RYAN J. FOLEY and MICHAEL BIESECKER

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The calls to 911 poured in from staff at Camp East Montana in Texas, the nation’s largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, at a rate of nearly one a day for five months, each its own tale of pain and despair.

A man sobs after being assaulted by another detainee. Another bangs his head against the wall after expressing suicidal thoughts. A pregnant woman complained of severe back pain and also had coronavirus.

“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,” said Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager in Columbia, Missouri, who spent several weeks in the camp before his deportation in February to the Netherlands. “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison.”

Fueled by billions of dollars in new funding, ICE operations across the nation have roiled communities, separated families and created a culture of fear in pursuit of President Donald Trump’s vow to rid the country of unauthorized migrants.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

The mass arrests have swelled detention centers, and set ICE off on a national chase for space to warehouse those who have been apprehended. Far from the “worst of the worst” that Trump vowed to deport, the data from ICE show that 80% at the camp had no criminal record and were instead caught up in a far-reaching dragnet.

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Camp East Montana looks like a pop up village, with six long tents along a stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert outside El Paso at the U.S. Army base Fort Bliss, once the site of an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. Inside the hastily constructed camp, a series of communal living pods shelter thousands of immigrants in color-coded uniforms and Croc-style shoes.

But the stories of the conditions at the facility, revealed in data and recordings from more than a hundred 911 calls obtained by the The Associated Press — in addition to follow-up interviews and court filings — offer a disturbing portrait of overcrowding, medical neglect, malnutrition and emotional distress.

The detainees describe a camp where an average of about 3,000 people have lived per day in loud and unsanitary quarters, diseases spread easily and sleep is a luxury. The center will be closed to visitors until at least March 19 because of a measles outbreak, according to U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar.

Detainees struggle to obtain medication and health care, lose concerning amounts of weight because of a lack of food, and live in fear of private security guards known to use force to put down disturbances. The ceilings in the windowless tents leak when it rains and they only see sunlight during brief outings once or twice a week to a cramped recreation yard.

In an email, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson who did not provide their name rejected claims of subprime conditions, saying Camp East Montana detainees receive food, water and medical treatment in a facility that is regularly cleaned.

The agency said Tuesday that normal operations continue at the camp. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that ICE is considering a plan to close it.

Detainee says guards bet on suicide

Like other detainees, Ramsingh said that between cleanings the rooms, restrooms and showers were often filthy and infested with insects. He said detainees stole others’ food because everyone was hungry due to the small and sometimes inedible meals, which led to fights, and the conditions took a toll on his mental health.

At one point he said he overheard a security guard talking about bets made among the staff over which detainee would be next to die by suicide. The guard said he had paid $500 into a pool, with the total pot riding on the outcome. The talk was particularly jarring, he said, because he had contemplated suicide himself.

The DHS spokesperson said Ramsingh’s account was false, though provided no indication of how the agency had sought to verify that.

Owen Ramsingh, who spent months in Camp East Montana before his deportation to The Netherlands, poses for a portrait in his father’s home in Utrecht, Netherlands, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Ramsingh said he heard of the betting pool after Jan. 3, when ICE said security guards responded after a 55-year-old Cuban man tried to harm himself and then used handcuffs and force to restrain him. A medical examiner ruled that Geraldo Lunas Campos’s death was a homicide caused by asphyxia.

On Jan. 14, staff reported that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide days after he was detained while working in Minnesota.

In addition to those cases, detainees attempted to harm themselves while expressing suicidal ideations on at least six other occasions that resulted in 911 calls, according to records from the City of El Paso obtained under the Texas public information law.

DHS said the facility’s medical staff “closely monitors at-risk detainees,” provides mental health treatment and tries to prevent suicide attempts.

Ramsingh was a legal permanent resident brought to the U.S. at age 5, when his Dutch mom married a U.S. service member. He married a U.S. citizen in 2015.

But at the age of 45, immigration authorities detained him at Chicago O’Hare airport in September after he flew home from a trip to visit family in the Netherlands. They cited a drug conviction from when he was 16 years old, for which he served prison time decades ago. He was among the first detainees sent to Camp East Montana.

A sign marks the entrance to a series of hardened tents at the Camp East Montana immigrant detention center in the desert at a U.S. Army base on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

‘It’s really mentally draining’

Other medical emergencies included seizures, chest and heart problems, according to AP’s review of 130 calls made after the camp’s opening in mid-August through Jan. 20.

“It’s not easy in here, psychologically,” said detainee Roland Kusi, 31, who said he fled Cameroon in 2022 to escape political violence. “You just keep thinking, like all the time, you’re thinking and thinking for a solution. … It’s really mentally draining.”

Immigration authorities arrested him in Chicago in September at an appointment with his wife, a member of the Army National Guard, to register their marriage in pursuit of legal residency for him. He was shipped quickly to El Paso.

A Cuban immigrant in his 50s told the AP he requested to receive his medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and an enlarged prostate during a six-week detention at Camp East Montana but it never arrived. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

A Cuban man in his 50s, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, adapts to life in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, after agreeing to self-deport last year from the Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso, Texas, where he says he desperately requested medication to treat diabetes and high blood pressure and never received it. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

Desperate, the man said he once refused to leave living quarters when a cleaning crew came. An immigration official offered him Ibuprofen, and urged him to consider leaving for another country.

“He says to me, ‘Look, there are a lot of detainees, we don’t have enough for everyone,’” he said. “The man from ICE says to me, ’OK, why don’t you decide it’s better to leave? Leave for Mexico, go to Cuba. There you can have your medicine, have your things.’”

Fearing death, the man agreed to self-deport to Mexico to Ciudad Juárez — across the international border from his wife and their 11-year-old son in El Paso.

Injured detainees range from teenagers to retirees

The detainees, mostly male, come from all over the world. Some have lived in the U.S. for decades.

The camp is intended for short-term stays before detainees are transferred or deported. The average stay there is only nine days, according to ICE data, but some detainees have been kept for months amid court cases or logistical issues related to deportation. Ramsingh said he got stuck there for weeks after his deportation was ordered because ICE lost his Dutch passport. His personal belongings, including gold jewelry, also went missing.

Advocates for detainees and some members of Congress have called for the camp’s closure, citing inhumane conditions.

“This facility should not be operational. It feels like this contractor is reinventing the wheel, and people are losing their lives in their experiment,” said Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso who has toured the camp several times.

She said the facility had temporarily cut its population below 1,900 when she visited last month after cases of the measles and tuberculosis were reported.

On one visit, a female detainee showed Escobar a meager serving of scrambled eggs that was served still frozen in the middle. She learned that detainees protested after they had stopped receiving juice, fruit and milk with their meals.

Escobar also met with a detainee from Ecuador who said his arm had been broken during a violent arrest by immigration agents in Minnesota. Weeks later, he was still pleading for proper medical treatment and the congresswoman could still the fractured bones in his forearm poking up under the skin.

“I asked him, have you asked for help? And he said, ‘I ask every day, all day. And the only thing they give me is aspirin’,” she recalled.

This Wednesday, March 4, 2026, satellite image provided by Planet Labs shows the large white tents and steel fencing at Camp East Montana, an immigrant detention center built by the Trump administration at Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base outside El Paso, Texas. (Planet Labs via AP)

A missing inspection report

The Washington Post reported in September that a required ICE inspection found conditions at the facility violated at least 60 federal standards for immigration detention, but that report never been released publicly.

The DHS spokesperson did not explain why but called claims in the Post story false. The spokesperson said ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight recently completed an inspection at Camp East Montana but that report also has not been released.

The camp was hastily constructed last summer after the administration awarded a contract now worth up to $1.3 billion to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a Virginia contractor that had previously not operated an ICE facility.

The company uses subcontractors at Camp East Montana, including security firm Akima Global Services and medical contractor Loyal Source.

Escobar called for an investigation into the contractors, saying they were not delivering the services paid for by taxpayers.

“People should be moved by the abject cruelty, but if they’re not, I hope they’re moved by the fraud and corruption,” she said.

Akima didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. Loyal Source declined comment.

Seizures, fights also reported on calls

Most of the 911 calls were made by the camp’s contract medical staff. At least 20 incidents were reported as seizures, including some that resulted in head trauma.

Some injuries stemmed from fights between detainees, including a man who said he had been kicked in the ear and battered in his ribs. Another man reported he could not move his left eye after he had been assaulted the day before.

A woman who was 12 weeks pregnant had not received any prenatal care prior to her arrival at Camp East Montana and was intense pain, 911 calls revealed. She was among a small number of emergencies involving women, who make up less than 10% of the camp’s population.

The calls also revealed some staff discord. A doctor is heard berating another employee for seeking to take a suicidal detainee back into the detention facility rather than to the emergency room, only to then figure out they had confused two different patients.

After one detainee attempted suicide while in an isolation room, a doctor could be heard speaking with a shaken colleague. A security supervisor assured him, the doctor said, that incidents “like this shouldn’t happen.”

Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa, and Biesecker reported from Washington.

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By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American job market is looking brighter this year than it did in a gloomy 2025.

The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that U.S. companies, nonprofits and government agencies added 60,000 jobs last month. That would be down from an unexpectedly strong 130,000 in January. But it would mark considerable improvement over the monthly average of just 15,000 new jobs in 2025, weakest hiring since the COVID-19 recession year 2020.

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The unemployment rate is forecast to have stayed at a low 4.3% last month, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.

The Bank of America Institute said Wednesday that its data – drawn from anonymized customer accounts – also showed solid hiring in February for the second straight month – expanding 1.3% last month on top of a 0.8% gain in January. “Job market growth is gaining traction,” David Tinsley, a senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, told reporters Wednesday. “February’s numbers show real forward momentum.”

Likewise, a private report on Wednesday by payroll processor ADP showed that companies added 63,000 jobs in February, the most since last July.

The Labor Department report is likely to show that February hiring was hampered by frigid winter weather and a four-week strike by nurses and other front-line workers at Kaiser Permanente in California and Hawaii, which probably shaved more than 30,000 jobs off last month’s payrolls. Some economists also suspect that the solid January jobs figures were overstated and are likely to be revised lower in Friday’s report.

The outlook for the job market – and the entire economy – is clouded by the war with Iran.

Employers were reluctant to hire last year because of uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs – and the unpredictable way he rolled them out.

High interest rates, engineered by the Federal Reserve to combat a burst of inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic, also weighed on the job market in 2025.

The impact of Trump’s aggressive trade policies may recede in 2025. His import taxes became smaller and less erratic after he reached a trade truce last year with China and deals with leading U.S. trade partners such as Japan and the European Union. A lot of businesses have also learned how to offset the costs of the tariffs, often by passing them along to customers via higher prices.

Businesses needed “a year to bake some of those costs into their business model, and now it’s time to get back to growth mode,’’ said Andy Decker, CEO of Atlanta-based Goodwin Recruiting.

The Supreme Court has also struck down the biggest and boldest of Trump’s tariffs – though he is planning to replace them.

Still, hiring continues to lag far behind the hiring boom of 2021-2023 when the economy was bouncing back from pandemic lockdowns and the United States was adding nearly 400,000 jobs a month. Many economists describe today’s job market as “no-hire, no-fire’’: Companies are reluctant to add workers but don’t want to let go of the ones they have.

Luckily, achieving good-enough job growth is easier these days.

Until a year or two ago, employers needed to hire well over 100,000 people a month to keep the unemployment rate from rising.

But Baby Boomer retirements and President Donald Trump’s deportations mean there are fewer people competing for work. So the break-even point is much lower – anywhere from zero to 50,000 jobs a month, said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm RSM. “Under the current conditions, 70,000 should be considered solid,’’ he said.

Companies may be holding off on hiring as they buy, install and figure out how best to use new technologies, including artificial intelligence. AI, after all, potentially means they “can do more with less’’ and will need fewer workers, especially for entry-level positions, Brusuelas said.

They are thinking, he said, “we’ve invested an awful lot of money in (capital expenditures), and we need to see how much we can produce with our current labor force… The last thing you want to do is hire a lot of young people and then let them go.’’

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

By CHAN HO-HIM, AP Business Writer

HONG KONG (AP) — World shares were mixed Friday following a retreat on Wall Street, while the price of oil resumed its upward climb, hitting its highest level in nearly two years.

U.S. futures fell as the war with Iran entered its seventh day, with Israeli airstrikes pounding the capitals of Iran and Lebanon. The future for the S&P 500 dropped 0.3% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2%.

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In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.1% to 10,423.95. Germany’s DAX slipped 0.2% to 23,775.35, while the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.2% to 8,030.10.

In Asian trading, South Korea’s Kospi edged up less than 0.1% to 5,584.87, after a roller coaster week with a record 12% loss on Wednesday followed by a nearly 10% rebound on Thursday. The index had shot above 6,000 in recent weeks before the war began to rattle financial markets.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.6% to 55,620.84.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.7% to 25,757.29, while the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.4% to 4,124.19.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1% to 8,851.00.

Taiwan’s Taiex shed 0.2% and India’s Sensex lost 0.8%.

Oil prices rose after dipping earlier after soaring earlier this week as production and supply worries over the war with Iran intensified.

Benchmark U.S. crude surged 4.1% to $84.36 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 1.7% to $87 per barrel. It was trading near its its highest level since April 2024.

If oil prices spike further, perhaps to $100 per barrel, and remain at that level, some analysts and investors expect that would weigh on global economic growth. Uncertainty over what will happen with the war has caused frenetic swings across financial markets this week.

Before oil prices started rising again, ING analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note that Friday’s brief easing of crude prices followed a 30-day temporary waiver from the U.S. for Indian refiners to buy Russian oil. It’s not a “game-changer,” they said, but reflects U.S efforts to cap oil prices.

Oil prices will hinge on a steady resumption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz following disruptions of tanker activities there, the ING analysts wrote. Roughly one fifth of the world’s seaborne oil is estimated to flow through the waterway located between Iran and Oman.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 0.6% and the Dow industrials lost 1.6%. The Nasdaq composite dropped 0.3%.

Airline stocks were among Wall Street’s biggest losers, as higher oil prices pushed up fuel costs while hundreds of thousands of passengers have been stranded across the Middle East due to the war.

American Airlines fell 5.4%, United Airlines lost 5% and Delta Air Lines was down 3.9%.

In other dealings early Friday, the U.S. dollar rose to 157.84 Japanese yen from 157.56 yen. The euro fell to $1.1582 from $1.1611.

The price of gold rose 0.4% and the price of silver climbed 1.1%.

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI, SHEIKH SAALIQ, KRISHAN FRANCIS and ROD McGUIRK

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka began transferring more than 200 sailors from an Iranian vessel to shore Friday after the ship sought assistance while anchored outside the country’s waters, as tensions mounted in the Indian Ocean following the sinking of an Iranian warship by a U.S. submarine.

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Sri Lankan navy spokesperson Cmdr. Buddhika Sampath said 204 sailors of the IRIS Bushehr were brought to the Welisara Naval Base near the capital, Colombo. They underwent border control procedures and medical tests, but none were found to have health issues.

About 15 others have been left aboard the ship with Sri Lankan naval personnel for assistance because they had reported a fault with the ship.

The Iranian sailors are interpreting operational instructions, manuals and logs for their Sri Lankan counterparts because the ship will be in Sri Lankan custody until further notice, Sampath said.

The ship will be taken to the port of Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka, Sampath said.

Iranian ship was taking part in naval exercises

The Sri Lankan government took custody of the Bushehr after the U.S. sank an Iranian warship, the IRIS Dena, off Sri Lanka’s coast Wednesday. The strike marked one of the rare instances since World War II in which a submarine sank a surface warship, and highlighted the expanding scope of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran.

The Dena had participated in naval exercises hosted by India before heading into international waters on its way home. At least 74 countries had joined the events, according to India’s Defense Ministry, including the U.S. Navy, which conducted reconnaissance aircraft and maritime patrol drills.

The Indian navy received a distress signal from the Dena but by the time it launched a search and rescue operation, the Sri Lankan navy had already begun its own rescue efforts, the ministry said.

The Sri Lankan navy rescued 32 sailors and recovered 87 bodies.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Dena had been carrying “almost 130” crew. The normal crew size for a warship of that class is 140.

Araghchi called the sinking an “atrocity at sea” and said the US would “bitterly regret” the attack.

Sri Lanka says it acted under international law

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said late Thursday that authorities decided to take control of the IRIS Bushehr after discussions with Iranian officials and the ship’s captain, after one of its engines failed.

“We have to understand that this is not an ordinary situation. It’s a request by a ship belonging to one party to enter into our port. We have to consider that according to the international treaties and conventions,” he told journalists Thursday night.

Separately on Friday, he wrote on X: “No civilian should die in wars. Our approach is that every single life is as precious as our own.”

The IRIS Bushehr had been described in previous Iranian media reports as a navy logistics ship equipped with a helicopter pad.

Dissanayake said Sri Lanka was guided by neutrality while seeking to uphold humanitarian principles.

“We have followed a very clear stance. We will not be biased to any state nor we will be submissive to any state,” he said.

Sri Lanka’s neutrality is tested

The broadening Middle East conflict is putting strategically located Sri Lanka in a delicate position as it tries to balance humanitarian obligations, international maritime law and its longstanding policy of non-alignment.

H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, Sri Lanka’s retired former foreign secretary who also served as its permanent representative to the United Nations, said the country had acted responsibly and impartially.

“There has been a distress call from the ship. So naturally Sri Lanka, as a party to the Law of Sea and The Hague Convention, had no option but to do what it did by mounting a humanitarian operation to provide assistance to save lives and provide medical care to the affected,” he said.

Palihakkara said parties to the conflict would understand that Sri Lanka was not taking sides.

“You could not have ignored the distress call. Even the attacking powers cannot leave shipwrecked sailors dying. That is the law,” Palihakkara said.

Katsuya Yamamoto, director of the Strategy and Deterrence Program at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo, said Sri Lanka, which is not at war with either the U.S. or Iran, is considered a neutral state. As such, the Bushehr can enter a Sri Lankan port if granted permission by the government, he said.

Yamamoto said that once the vessel is docked, it falls under Iranian jurisdiction, leaving Sri Lankan authorities without legal grounds to inspect it unless Colombo decides to side with the U.S.

Australians aboard submarine

Australia’s government confirmed on Friday that three Australians were aboard the submarine that sank the IRIS Dena. The Australians were there as part of the trilateral U.S., Australian and British training program under the AUKUS security pact.

The Australian government has maintained it was not warned that the U.S and Israel planned to attack Iran. Australia has not commented on the legality of the attack, but supports the objective of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

Neil James, executive director of the Australian Defense Association policy think tank, said it is “reasonably rare” for Australians embedded with another nation’s military to go to war against a country such as Iran that Australia wasn’t at war with.

He said an Australian would not have fired the torpedo that sank the Iranian ship

“The Australians wouldn’t have a job where they had to push the button on the torpedo because the captain of the boat gives the order and someone else, perhaps the weapons officer, presses the button but they’re not going to be Australian,” James said.

Saaliq reported from New Delhi and McGuirk reported from Melbourne, Australia. Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo, Japan.