DHS has purchased industrial park warehouses in far east El Paso for about $123 million – they plan on using the buildings for a mega migrant detention facility.
According to a memo just released by the agency – DHS is switching up their operations to include ‘non- traditional’ facilities – like the one in El Paso- to boost the capacity for the number of illegal migrant criminals that can be held and speed up deportations. These facilities are also going to be ICE owned and controlled – in a move away from the facilities that are contracted out like local jails
The facility in West Texas is one of 8 large scale mega centers that can each hold up to 10,000 illegal migrant criminals for about 60 days. These will be the primary hubs for holding migrants before they are shipped out of the country.
This specific facility includes three warehouses that are about 300,000 square feet each – with plenty of space to expand.
It will have about 8,500 beds making it one of the largest for ICE and among the biggest detention facilities of any kind in the U.S.
In addition to the Mega Centers 16 smaller regional centers that can hold about 1,500 migrants each will be set up and able to keep detainees for about 3-7 days.
These will mainly be used for processing and staging transfers.
The 24 facilities are on top of the 10 migrant facilities that are already up and running – they’re called turnkeys – and ICE is planning on bringing those facilities under fuller control
The facility near Clint, Texas is the second facility in the El Paso area.
The first went up at Fort Bliss last year and is more of a temporary tent based detention facility tied to the Department of Defense (DOD)
Its known as Camp East Montana and holds between 2,700 and 3,000 migrants a day on average – with plans to expand to 5,000 beds – making it one of the largest detention facilities in the US
The goal for DHS is to have about one hundred thousand detention beds nationwide – with all the new facilities open and operating by November of this year.
DHS is paying for everything with the money that congress approved for the agency in the “One Big Beautiful Bill”
The facility is expected to bring in at least 700 permanent jobs to the area, and infuse tens to hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy each year.
The East El Paso facility will be used as a deportation staging site, because its fairly close to Biggs Army Airfield – Which had more than 1100 deportation flights last year alone.
