Texas Army base chosen to house migrants, defense officials say
CNN
The US Army’s base in El Paso, Texas — Fort Bliss — has been chosen as a site to detain and house potentially thousands of migrants, and contracts have already been signed to start the construction of migrant facilities on the base, three defense officials told CNN.
The US Army’s base in El Paso, Texas — Fort Bliss — has been chosen as a site to detain and house potentially thousands of migrants, and contracts have already been signed to start the construction of migrant facilities on the base, three defense officials told CNN. The US Army has now taken control of contracts supporting the construction and maintenance of the facilities on Fort Bliss, as well as a contract to oversee a central processing center in El Paso, the officials said. Those contracts were originally awarded to private entities by US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The current plan for Fort Bliss is to build facilities that can hold as many as 5,000 migrants, one of the defense officials said. “Regarding ICE building a facility on Bliss, I can say that the Secretary of Defense has authorized the US Army to assume control and management of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts supporting the facility construction, maintenance and upkeep at the CBP El Paso Central Processing Center and on Army land at Fort Bliss,” another of the defense officials said. While the facilities will be on US military property, Army personnel will not be manning them due to laws barring military personnel from engaging in law enforcement activity. ProPublica reported earlier on Friday that ICE had awarded a contract to a private company to operate a migrant detention camp on Fort Bliss. CNN has previously reported that officials were looking at using US military bases to house migrants instead of Guantanamo Bay, where the administration has been periodically sending migrants before moving onward to their final destinations.
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