The U.S. government is building an immense 5,000-person detention camp in west Texas, government contract announcements said, sharply increasing the Trump administration’s ability to hold detained immigrants amid its ever-growing mass deportation efforts.
A Defense Department contract announcement on Monday said Acquisition Logistics, a Virginia-based firm, had been awarded $232 million in Army funds to build the facility, which would be used for single immigrant adults.
Procurement documents called it a “soft sided facility,” a phrase often used for tent camps.
The announcement came just weeks after Florida authorities rushed to construct a new immigration detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” which was built on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland in the Florida Everglades.
The announcement said the new facility would be built in El Paso, which is home to Ft. Bliss, an Army base that stretches across parts of Texas and New Mexico.
President Donald Trump recently signed a law setting aside $170 billion on border and immigration enforcement, including $45 billion for detention, even as the number of illegal border crossings has plunged. ICE will see its funding grow by $76.5 billion over five years, nearly 10 times its current annual budget.
Trump has vowed to deport millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S.
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