WASHINGTON – The Pentagon said it wants to make Fort Bliss the “largest federal detention center in history” to hold migrants, and will have the Texas Army base prepared to hold 1,000 detainees within weeks.
The military began building a detention center at the base in mid-July with the goal of an “initial operating capacity” of 1,000 detainees by mid to late August, Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson told reporters on Aug. 7. “We will finish construction for up to 5,000 beds in the weeks and months ahead,” she said.
“Upon completion, this will be the largest federal detention center in history for this critical mission.”
The Trump administration has gestured towards a sweeping plan to jail migrants awaiting deportation at United States military bases. Military officials have screened bases across the country at possible migrant detention centers, USA TODAY previously reported.
Around 100 migrants are already detained at Fort Bliss, an Army base just outside El Paso, and Pentagon officials have hinted for months that they planned to increase that number to thousands.
Army Sec. Dan Driscoll announced the plan during a visit to the base in late March, the El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, previously reported. The Defense Department awarded a contract to a Virginia company to run the detention center on July 18.
In January, President Donald Trump ordered the military to detain up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo, the United States military base in Cuba, which has held high-security prisoners from the “war on terror” for decades. Less than 1,000 migrants are currently held at the Naval base, according to reports.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also approved the use of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey and Camp Atterbury in Indiana to hold migrants.
The Department of Homeland Security initially requested on June 10 that the military hold 1,000 migrants at each base for 14 days, and the sites could expand to accommodate as many as 3,000 apiece after an “evaluation period,” according to documents first published by the New Jersey Spotlight News. Guantanamo would hold 500 people, according to the request.
Around 70 National Guardsmen are also providing security and securing the perimeter of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a makeshift migrant detention center in Florida’s Everglades that was speedily assembled and opened in July, according to the Pentagon and the Florida National Guard. A federal judge on Aug. 7 ordered a 14-day halt to construction on the Everglades facility after environmental groups filed a lawsuit over what they called “serious threats” to the surrounding ecosystem, bodies of water and animals.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fort Bliss to be biggest migrant detention center ‘in history’
