Deportation Inc.
Trump Awards $1.26 Billion Contract to Build Biggest Immigrant Detention Center in US
Tent camp with 5,000 beds would be the largest such facility in the country, fueling fears of advocates who say they often don’t meet basic needs
Photo Illustration: 731. Photograph: US Air Force
The federal government has awarded a contract to build and operate a sprawling tent camp at Fort Bliss, an Army base in Texas, to serve as an immigrant detention center.
In the Trump administration’s latest move to vastly expand space for such detention, the work would turn the base in El Paso, with more than 1 million acres and an airport, into a deportation hub with 5,000 beds, according to a US Department of Defense contract notice. That would make it the largest immigration detention facility in the country.