A new immigration detention facility, expected to be the largest in the United States, is set to open this week after facing months of delays, including a failed contract and a workplace death.
The detention facility, dubbed “Lonestar Lockup” by Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, will begin receiving hundreds of people on August 17. The site at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, has an initial capacity of approximately 1,000, but that will expand to 5,000, making it the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the country.
Donald Trump’s administration has rushed to open detention camps including in Florida, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, and Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer”, to fulfill the president’s mass deportation agenda.
More than 60,000 people are now being held in immigrant detention centers, according to internal ICE records obtained by The New York Times, breaking the previous record of 55,654 people in August 2019.
The process of building the soft-sided tent camp at the Texas military base has been beset by controversies since the beginning.
For the past six months, Trump officials have been seeking to build an ICE facility on a military base, eventually settling on Fort Bliss.
In April, the administration initially awarded a multi-billion-dollar contract to a company called Deployed Resources to build the Fort Bliss camp but it was quickly canceled. A White House document about the contract claims it was terminated “for convenience”, citing Trump’s executive order on wasteful spending and transparency.
Weeks later, the government offered two contracts to build and maintain the facility, but both offers were pulled before they could be awarded to a new company. It is unclear why.
Finally, in July, the Department of Defense announced it had secured a $231.9 million contract, under a Navy program, with Acquisition Logistics LLC to construct and operate the ICE detention facility in El Paso.
Another company that did not win the bid, Gemini Tech Services LLC., filed a bid protest in July. While it is sealed, a source told NBC News the company was seeking to stop construction of the facility.
The Fort Bliss project is also subject of two investigations by the Government Accountability Office, an independent nonpartisan agency that audits, investigates, and evaluates government services, according to NBC News. Those investigations are for improper bidding.
Last month, the project faced tragedy after Hector Gonzalez, a 38-year-old employee with a subcontracted company, died in a workplace accident. The death is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as well as the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division.
“Hector was a beloved husband, father, son, brother and co-worker and he will be greatly missed. Our support and prayers are with his entire family,” a spokesperson for his company, Disaster Management Group, told NBC News.
In response to questions about the bid protest and workplace accident death, an Army spokesperson told NBC News that they are “aware of the GAO protest for the Acquisition Logistics contract,” but could not discuss the issue due to ongoing litigation.
“However, we can confirm that this protest is unrelated to the recent death, which is under investigation,” the Army spokesperson added.
In a statement, ICE said that the Fort Bliss facility will adhere to the agency’s detention standards and will include access to legal representation, visitation, recreation space, and medical treatment space. The immigration detention center will also provide balanced meals and necessary accommodations, ICE stated.
The facility with serve as a detention center and processing center, streamlining the removal process, ICE noted.
"Upon completion, this will be the largest federal detention center in history for this critical mission - the deportation of illegal aliens," Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson said.
So far, several states have assisted the federal government by building detention facilities including Florida, which erected Alligator Alcatraz, a tent camp and temporary holding center in the Everglades. It’s been subject to scrutiny by lawmakers and detainees for its poor conditions.
Similarly, the Speedway Slammer, an extension of the Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana, has also been subject to criticism from local people who believe the facility is an inhumane way of housing immigrants.
Both facilities were built quickly to assist in the administration’s mass deportation agenda which has compounded worries from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates that the locations are unable to meet the stringent requirements of an ICE facility.
