The Defense Department has begun construction on what defense officials claim will be the largest detention center for detained migrants in the United States, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson announced at a press briefing Thursday.
The facility will be located at Fort Bliss, Texas, and is expected to have the capacity to hold 1,000 people by the end of August. This capacity will be grown to 5,000, Wilson said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already approved access to the base and use of the site by the Department of Homeland Security, Wilson told reporters.
“Upon completion, this will be the largest federal detention center in history for this critical mission — the deportation of illegal aliens,” Wilson said.
The site will function as a processing center where immigrants lacking permanent legal status will be detained before they are referred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations for removal flights from the country. The site will reportedly be operational as of Aug. 17.
Fort Bliss, which spans 1,700 miles across both Texas and New Mexico, is the second-largest U.S. Army installation, rivaled only by White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Like Arizona’s Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, Fort Bliss has had problems over the years with drug smuggling and human trafficking.
In August 2023, the son of El Paso drug trafficker Jimmy Chagra was arrested for selling drugs, including cocaine, fentanyl and LSD, to soldiers based at Fort Bliss. This May, a Fort Bliss resident and another individual were arrested by Border Patrol agents for alleged cross-border human smuggling. It has not been confirmed whether those arrested were service members.
While the Fort Bliss detention facility is new, the installation has long been a site where the military and law enforcement have cooperated to halt illicit narcotics trafficking, with the first joint center at that location targeting transnational crime established in 1986.
Zita Ballinger Fletcher previously served as editor of Military History Quarterly and Vietnam magazines and as the historian of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. She holds an M.A. with distinction in military history.
