Fort Bliss this month will prepare to house 1,000 illegal migrants by mid-August as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan, according to reports.
The base located near the southern border in El Paso, Texas, will serve as a model as the administration seeks to develop more detention facilities on military sites across the country to make up for a shortfall of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, The New York Times reported in February.
Fort Bliss is expected to hold 5,000 people in tent-like facilities at full capacity, which would turn it into the largest U.S. detention facility for civil detainees, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
“This process does include housing detainees at certain military bases, including Fort Bliss,” Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, the Post reported.
ICE officials on Wednesday said Fort Bliss is expected to hold 1,000 detainees by Aug. 17.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last month that Indiana’s Camp Atterbury and New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst also will be used to temporarily house illegal immigrants prior to their deportation.
DHS officials have not announced the timeline for opening the detention facilities on the Indiana and New Jersey bases.
A defense official told the Post that Hegseth would allow DHS to build “temporary soft-sided holding facilities” for migrants at Camp Atterbury and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Department of Homeland Security Executive Secretary Andrew Whitaker sent a June 10 letter to Pentagon officials requesting “immediate access” to the bases in Indiana, New Jersey and at Guantánamo Bay, the Post reported.
“These facilities have been identified as strategic locations for detention, processing and removal operations by DHS,” wrote Whitaker, who added the bases will be a “central hub” for a steady stream of removal operations in the interior.
Whitaker wrote that officials plan to stage deportation flights for two months from the Indiana, New Jersey and Guantánamo bases and then reevaluate and possibly expand the model to other bases.
The use of military bases to house illegal migrants follows President Donald Trump’s deployment of thousands of troops to guard the U.S.-Mexico border and his administration’s use of military planes for some deportation flights.
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