Chickenpox exposure prompts quarantine at ICE detention center in East El Paso

Camp East Montana, an immigrant detention center in East El Paso, quarantined this month after four female detainees were exposed to chickenpox, according to El Paso Matters. An additional 55 detainees were identified as secondary contacts—people who interacted with someone exposed to the virus but did not have direct contact with an infected person.

All exposures originated at an unnamed Arizona facility before the detainees were transferred to Camp East Montana. Staff at the El Paso facility reported the exposures occurred June 28, and a medical contractor for Loyal Source notified the El Paso Department of Public Health on July 8.

Vanessa Casner, the city's lead epidemiologist, said authorities did not disclose the Arizona facility's identity. She clarified that the facility uses the term "quarantine" broadly to describe monitoring and isolation of individuals following exposure. The monitoring period for the chickenpox exposures ended July 19 with no confirmed cases and no reported exposures to workers, visitors, or the community.

The incident marks the third exposure monitoring period at Camp East Montana since the measles outbreak in February and March, when 24 cases were reported among detainees and in the community. The first monitoring period, following a May 27 measles exposure, involved nearly 180 detainees after more than a dozen were exposed to confirmed measles cases at an Arizona detention facility; that period ended June 17 with no positive tests. A second monitoring period, following a June 17 measles exposure, ended July 8, also with no positive cases.

Facility authorities also notified the health department July 2 about a detainee exposed to measles at an unnamed location, but later determined the exposure had not occurred. Monitoring for that person was discontinued over the weekend, Casner said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to questions from El Paso Matters, including whether communication with the local health department had improved. In June, El Paso health authority Dr. Hector Ocaranza warned that slow communication from ICE threatened the city's outbreak response. An El Paso Matters investigation earlier this year documented how information gaps frustrated the health department's containment efforts during the measles outbreak that spread from ICE detention centers into the community.