Fort Bliss, Camp Atterbury, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst have been approved to hold migrants before deportation. Photo / Supplied
The Trump Administration’s plan to install large-scale detention facilities on United States military bases is taking shape.
Fort Bliss is preparing to detain at least 1000 undocumented immigrants starting this month on the Mexican border, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said yesterday.
The sprawling Army post in El Paso is expected to hold 5000 people in tent-like facilities at full capacity, which would turn it into the largest detention facility in the US for civil detainees.
ICE spokeswoman Emily Covington confirmed that authorities began holding migrants at Fort Bliss on August 1.
Last month, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth also approved the temporary use of Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey to house several thousand migrants before they are deported.
Hegseth also green-lit a small expansion of detention beds at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba, the officials said, though the total number remains far lower than what President Donald Trump had aspired for.
Taken together, the bases are at the core of the Trump Administration’s efforts to carry out rapid removals from the US and a model for expanded Pentagon involvement in domestic deportation operations going forward.
The plans would deepen Homeland Security’s footprint in the northern US, where detention centres are in short supply and state laws limit co-operation with federal immigration enforcement.
“These facilities have been identified as strategic locations for detention, processing and removal operations by DHS,” Andrew Whitaker, executive secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a June 10 letter to defence officials requesting “immediate access” to the bases in Indiana, New Jersey and Guantanamo.
He said the bases will be a “central hub” for a steady stream of removal operations in the interior. The letter was first published by NJ Spotlight News and confirmed by the Washington Post.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that ICE “is indeed pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity”.
“This process does include housing detainees at certain military bases, including Fort Bliss,” she said in a statement.
Trump has long favoured engaging the might of the US military to carry out what he has hailed as the largest domestic deportation operation in US history.
He attempted to expand the military’s role in deportations during his first term but faced pushback from the Pentagon.
Then and now there have been concerns that the military bases are unsuitable for civil detention and will fail to meet basic safety and legal requirements such as access to lawyers and medical care.
This year Trump has ordered the military to play a greater role, deploying thousands of troops to guard the southern border and tapping military planes for some deportation flights - with relatively little resistance.
Deliberations between the Departments of Defence and Homeland Security remain complex, however, and have dragged on for months, delaying the Trump Administration’s ambitious goals.
DHS officials have not disclosed the timeline for opening the detention facilities on the Indiana and New Jersey bases despite repeated requests for information from the media and lawmakers.
Federal officials said in an internal email earlier this year that ICE had expected to launch large-scale detention operations at Camp Atterbury in June, according to records reviewed by the Washington Post.
Trump’s goal of housing 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo is also unmet; Whitaker said in his June letter that the base expects to detain fewer than 500 people, including 50 beds already allocated to DHS.
Whitaker had asked in his letter for “immediate” assistance in detaining immigrants at Camp Atterbury, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and Guantanamo. Defence officials notified DHS on July 15 - more than a month later - that Hegseth had approved the request. Officials with Hegseth’s office did not respond to questions.
A defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said Hegseth would allow DHS to build “temporary soft-sided holding facilities” at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey to house the migrants.
The timeline to use those facilities will depend on operational requirements that emerge and co-ordination with DHS, the defence official said.
ICE officials said yesterday that Fort Bliss is expected to hold 1000 detainees by August 17. The short-term “soft-sided” facility is for immigrants in deportation proceedings or with final deportation orders ready for removal via “ICE Air”, as the agency’s deportation fleet is known. Such facilities resemble a large tent and are equipped with climate control.
The Defence Department is funding the detention centre, known as “Camp East Montana”. Officials said the facility “offers everything a traditional ICE detention facility offers”, including access to legal representation, a law library, and space for visitation, recreation and medical treatment.
It offers nutritionally balanced meals and accommodations for people with disabilities, diet restrictions and religious beliefs, the officials said.
The build-up comes weeks after Congress approved US$45 billion in funding to support the Administration’s goal of doubling the nation’s detention capacity to 100,000 beds.
To help achieve that, it has contracted an array of new types of facilities, some of which critics say don’t offer detainees the same rights and level of care as they would receive in the traditional detention centres that have held most detainees for decades.
The detention centres on military bases will entrust the care of thousands of migrants to private contractors who have little or no experience detaining human beings, said Jennifer Ibanez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Centre.
Acquisition Logistics Company, the contractor picked to run the 5000-bed Fort Bliss site, has no previous experience running detention facilities, according to reporting by Bloomberg News. Last month, ProPublica reported that one of the subcontractors working on Fort Bliss is connected to a company that previously pleaded guilty to a scheme to hire undocumented workers.
One worker at Fort Bliss died on the job last month, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is investigating the incident. Courtney Parella Spencer, a spokeswoman with the Department of Labour, said she could not share any more details while the investigation remains ongoing.
When ICE detainees were sent to Guantanamo earlier this year, advocates filed a lawsuit claiming they lacked legal access at the base. And since migrants were brought to a makeshift detention centre in Florida’s Everglades this summer, some have complained about portable toilets that routinely backed up, swarms of mosquitoes and the inability to contest their legal status.
Military bases “are not designed, staffed or equipped for civilian detention operations”, said Jason Houser, who was ICE chief of staff from 2021 to 2023. “ICE detention at these facilities significantly complicates oversight, legal access, and routine congressional and NGO monitoring, raising the risk of violations and lack of transparency.”
In the June 10 letter to the Defence Department, Whitaker wrote that officials plan to stage deportation flights for a 60-day period from the Indiana, New Jersey and Guantanamo bases and then re-evaluate and possibly expand the model to other bases.
He wrote that officials expect to hold migrants on the Indiana, New Jersey and Guantánamo bases for about 14 days before they are removed, though he added that they could remain longer.
In response, a defence official made it clear that the military’s role would be limited - and imposed sometimes conflicting guardrails over what types of immigrants the bases would house.
Colonel Anthony Fuscellaro told DHS in a July 15 letter that ICE staff and contractors will be responsible for “all care and handling” of detainees, including meals, clothing, medical screening and transportation. “No DoD personnel will perform such activities,” he wrote.
Fuscellaro emphasised that the detainees must be “adult non-high threat illegal aliens”.
Camp Atterbury is federal property operated by the Indiana National Guard and does not have an airfield for deportation flights. The Defence Department said officials may use the New Jersey base airfield for up to two commercial aircraft and crews at a time. But Fuscellaro wrote that DHS must reimburse the Pentagon for any costs.
Democratic lawmakers have expressed frustration with the military build-up as the Trump Administration increasingly arrests immigrants who have never been convicted of a crime.
The Administration has decimated internal watchdog agencies that had monitored the government’s enforcement activities for years. Lawmakers have alleged in court that officials have limited their oversight access to detention facilities.
Most of New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation wrote to Hegseth, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and acting ICE director Todd Lyons last month to express “serious concerns about the diversion of critical defence resources from national security priorities”. They asked for a briefing.
“While US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will oversee care, this Administration’s record on immigration detention demands close scrutiny. It is essential that constitutional rights are upheld and that detainees are treated with dignity and provided adequate medical care,” lawmakers wrote.
Hegseth had earlier said in a July 15 letter to Conaway that the detention facilities in Indiana and New Jersey “will not negatively affect military training, operations, readiness or other military requirements”.
Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer for the Cascadia Cross-Border Law firm and a former US military officer, noted that previous administrations have used military bases to detain migrants.
The Biden Administration, for example, used Fort Bliss to house hundreds of unaccompanied minors in 2021, a situation that resulted in a federal investigation into the conditions after reports that the youths had been monitored for self-harm and panic attacks.
Stock said the Trump Administration’s bid to dramatically expand the number of migrants at Fort Bliss and other bases would create additional administrative hurdles for immigration lawyers seeking access to their clients on the highly restrictive military installations. And, she said, the prospect of housing large numbers of migrants would be “incredibly distracting” to the military.
“You’ve got a base that is supposed to focus on war-fighting and training, and they’ve got thousands of people that have nothing to do with the military on the base,” she said. “It takes extensive resources that they should not have to deal with.”
Others have celebrated the use of military bases and vowed to support the Trump Administration’s efforts.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (Republican) celebrated the plans for Fort Bliss on social media in late July, noting that the 5000-bed migrant detention centre would be the nation’s largest detention facility.
“We will help arrest, jail, & deport illegal immigrants,” he wrote on X.