Public Health and Immigration Detention

State and federal officials say 13 people held at Camp East Montana, a large immigration detention facility on the Fort Bliss Army base outside El Paso, Texas, have contracted measles and been placed in quarantine as Immigration and Customs Enforcement halts 'all movement within the facility.' DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis said medical staff are monitoring detainees and providing treatment while trying to prevent further spread; Texas’ health department has confirmed the cases, though it has not yet commented publicly. El Paso’s Department of Public Health has separately confirmed four measles cases in the city, stressing that the Fort Bliss detention center lies outside its jurisdiction. Camp East Montana, built last year to hold thousands of migrants, is the latest ICE facility to report measles after earlier cases at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas and a detention center in Florence, Arizona, fueling broader concern about disease control and vaccination gaps in crowded federal detention sites. Public‑health experts online are already warning that measles is highly contagious in such environments and that outbreaks behind barbed wire rarely stay there if staff and contractors are not rigorously immunized and screened.