Registrant killed by guards in immigration detention facility.
He was “a criminal illegal alien and convicted child sex predator.” That was the excuse from Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, after an autopsy report came out showing that an immigration detainee’s cause of death was homicide.
True, records show that the man was convicted in 2003 of a sexual offense for which he was sentenced to one year in jail and placed on the state’s sex offender registry. He was also a Cuban national, so he was not previously deportable, but under the current administration that changed. Here we are, 23 years later and that’s what the DHS has to say about his murder while in their custody.
ICE’s initial account of the death, which included no mention of an altercation with guards, said the man had become disruptive and staff moved him into a cellblock where detainees are held away from others. “While in segregation, staff observed him in distress and contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance,” the agency said in its Jan. 9 statement. “Medical staff responded, initiated lifesaving measures, and requested emergency medical services.”
However, witnesses say the man “become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement”. That’s the account the autopsy report supports. The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office found the man’s body showed signs of a struggle, including abrasions on his chest and knees. He also had hemorrhages on his neck. The deputy medical examiner, Dr. Adam Gonzalez. determined the cause of death was asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. DHS then amended their story.
Rather than condemning the death or addressing the cover-up, the DHS spokesperson chose to vilify the victim by calling him a sex predator. Well I guess that excuses it, right? Get caught killing people, just claim they were sex offenders and that makes it all right.
The saddest part about all this is that just earlier this week we wrote the same thing in another story about egregious DHS misconduct towards registrants (or their use of the “sex offender” label as a justification for the mistreatment).
This is exactly why we must come together with our sister organizations to change the narrative and confront the dangerous power of stigma. When a decades-old conviction is used to rationalize a man’s death and deflect scrutiny from government misconduct, the problem is no longer about public safety – it is about dehumanization. The “sex offender” label becomes a license to mistreat, to lie, and ultimately to excuse the inexcusable.
We once feared vigilantism at the hands of an angry public; now we must reckon with something far more alarming: a government that appears willing to rely on stigma to shield itself from accountability. Changing this reality requires collective action, moral clarity, and an insistence that justice applies to everyone, especially when the state itself is the one that must be held to account.
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It is time for FAC, NARSOL, ACSOL and all other organizations to loudly compare ICE’s current brutal and lawless campaign against otherwise law abiding citizens – which we know by now that most Americans are shocked by and strongly oppose – to the decades long brutal and lawless campaign by law enforcement at every level that we have endured for decades. Even now, we know that ICE’s lawlessness with impunity has emboldened local law enforcement across the US. Even now, we see the brutality and lawlessness of HB 45 and SB 212 sailing through the state legislature, and in case any of you have not noticed it we in Florida are far from alone in this campaign of violent retribution. Legislatures across America are “cracking down on sex offenders.
Notice that what was originally billed by ICE as an effort to locate and deport “the worst of the worst” quickly morphed into a criminal campaign against everyone – citizens and noncitizens, law abiding or not.
Notice that the phrase being used here – “the worst of the worst” is the very same description law enforcement has been using for decades to describe all of US as compared to any other class of offender.
Notice that, even though this person’s one and only offense was in 2003, with a flawless law abiding record ever since, he is still described by the ICE spokesperson as a “sexual predator,” which by definition means somebody who’s still out there lurking behind a bush waiting to pounce. Legally, to be classified as a “predator” there has to be an ongoing pattern of behavior … but not here.
Notice that the phrase “sexual predator” is the very same description law enforcement has been using for decades to describe all of US even though only a tiny percentage have actually reoffended.
Notice that the ICE brutality that Americans can now finally see and oppose is the same police brutality that we have always experienced. But the average American condones this brutality against US because they still believe all of us are “the worst of the worst.”
OF COURSE they were going to use Predator Panic ™ and weaponized the registry.
We warned people about this years ago and nobody listened.
“Let’s say we have a criminal migrant who is a sex offender. And let’s say we’ve got to go an arrest that person, who, Democrat or Republican, wants a sex offender living in their community? I would assume, I would hope, that most people don’t, but because their an illegal alien, we don’t know their last address…” (Source: “JD Vance admits nobody wants a sex offender living in their community.” Daily KOS. 1/23/2026. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/23/2365066/-JD-Vance-admits-nobody-wants-a-sex-offender-living-in-their-community).
It’s time to get out of this country any way you can.
This sets a dangerous precedent for people on that list, with regular citizens seeing what happened and the response by the government justifying their actions. It will open the doors even more for citizens to copy those actions and not worry about being punished for it. Im curious as to what he did to only get 1 year though as that seems extremely light sentence as I got 4 years for talking to a mother on a sex site. I have noticed over the past couple years the amount of people calling others a form of sex offenders and any derogatory name attached to it has risen to extremely high levels. Most of those accusations are because someone didnt agree with the other person’s comment,action or thought process. I do believe our country is heading for very dark times and most likely another civil war if not a full on genocide to the people on the registry which the government loves to create alot of people who aren’t threats to install them on to that list which removes all American rights and even human rights and then puts us in danger and refuses our human right to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
ok,
1) It is a documented fact that Geraldo Lunas Campos,Cuban national, died in ICE custody.a homicide by asphyxia from neck and torso compression, per the autopsy—
2) Its also a documented fact that officials brazenly leaned on his label as “a criminal illegal alien and convicted child sex predator” in statements, using it as a thinly veiled excuse to downplay or justify his murder.
3) This tactic is utterly revolting and exhausting, and has been mirrored multiple times by multiple agency’s over the 30 years of registry rhetoric where such dehumanizing tags are screamed proudly, not for safety or justice, but to boastfully sanction harm, social death, and literal killings—destroying lives and families irreparably while pretending surprise at the “quiet part” said out loud.
CONCLUSION: 30 years later I’m beyond tactful let me say it loud and clear for those in the back room who still don’t get it: it’s never been about protection; it’s a punitive death sentence, and the disgust runs bone-deep at how even advocates ignore the calls for our elimination. It won’t end until forced, point-blank. Over 35 years of my life washed away for a consensual act as a youth that almost every man in America in the locker room brags about doing “but didn’t get caught” yucka yucka.. Our lives will never come back , there is no amount of restoration that could restore that man’s life your lives or my familys and the harm that’s been done..Yet if that’s not enough they are clearly NOT remorseful AND ready to take the next step… Do you honestly not see that this is a neon flag waving we will hunt you we will kill you , hurt you , and harm your family in anyway we want and we’ve programed the population to support us step?? All we have to say is “sex offender” and we can do anything we want.. Worst thing is.. Read the news vines… They can do anything they want and they can get away with it…
Please post a link or links to the documented facts. Thank you.