The US government is set to build a massive new detention facility for immigrants in west Texas, significantly expanding its capacity to hold undocumented individuals as President Donald Trump ramps up mass deportation efforts.
According to a Department of Defense announcement on Monday, a Virginia-based firm, Acquisition Logistics, has been awarded a $232 million Army contract to construct the facility in El Paso. The site will accommodate 5,000 single immigrant adults and will be a “soft-sided facility,” a term commonly used to describe tent encampments.
The project follows closely on the heels of Florida’s rapid construction of a new immigrant detention center nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” built on an isolated swampland airstrip in the Everglades.
The El Paso location is near Ft. Bliss, one of the largest US Army bases, spanning parts of Texas and New Mexico.
The announcement comes amid a sweeping expansion of immigration enforcement under President Trump, who recently signed into law a staggering $170 billion allocation for border security and immigration control. Of that, $45 billion is earmarked specifically for detention infrastructure, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is set to receive $76.5 billion over the next five years, nearly ten times its current annual budget.
Trump has consistently pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, even as illegal border crossings have declined in recent months.
The construction of such large-scale facilities underscores the administration’s hardline approach and has drawn concern from immigrant rights advocates, who fear worsening conditions and human rights violations in what they describe as mass incarceration camps.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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