WASHINGTON — The Trump administration today has begun detaining people at Fort Bliss as part of its mass deportation campaign. The military base — which has land across El Paso, Texas, and Doña Ana and Otero counties in New Mexico — will detain up to 5,000 people, making it the country’s largest immigrant detention site. The administration also plans to use at least two more bases to detain and deport people who are immigrants.
The detention camp’s opening is the latest escalation in President Donald Trump’s dystopian agenda to detain and deport millions of immigrants from communities nationwide. The Fort Bliss detention camp, similar to the hastily built detention camp in the Florida Everglades, is a tent facility that will leave detained individuals vulnerable to extreme heat and other harsh conditions. Media reports suggest that the administration is poised to spend $1.26 billion to build the camp. Last month, Congress passed a budget reconciliation bill which will funnel $170 billion to turbocharge deportations and detention.
This expansion marks another shameful chapter in Fort Bliss’ history, as the facility was used to intern German and Italian immigrants and people of Japanese descent during World War II, and later used to detain unaccompanied children in 2016 and from 2021 to 2023, where some were subjected to severe abuse.
The renewed use of the base to detain immigrants and stage deportations comes as the Trump administration continues to misuse military resources to deport long-standing residents and other immigrants and plans to deploy troops to other Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention sites around the nation, including at military bases.
Attorneys issued the following statements in response:
Savannah Kumar (she/they), staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas:
“President Trump’s plan to build the nation’s largest immigrant detention site at Fort Bliss revives a shameful legacy — from the internment of Japanese Americans to the family separation crisis under his first administration. People detained there will almost certainly have their basic rights violated while caged in tents under the brutal West Texas sun, with extreme heat that puts their lives at risk. This is not just dangerous — it's cruel. We will continue to monitor the operation of Fort Bliss so that this human and civil rights catastrophe is neither hidden from the public nor ignored by those in power.”
Sarah Mehta (she/her), deputy director of government affairs, Equality Division at the American Civil Liberties Union:
“President Trump’s use of Fort Bliss for the nation’s largest immigrant detention site is cruel and a reminder of a shameful detention legacy. Thousands of people, including our neighbors and loved ones, will be torn from their communities while this administration enlists the military to rubberstamp its abusive agenda.
“Members of Congress must stop the use of the military — including its bases — for the Trump administration’s reckless and wasteful deportation drive.”
