Later this week, the Trump administration is set to open a sprawling new immigration detention facility at Fort Bliss in Texas that is slated to eventually become the largest in the nation.
The opening comes after months of setbacks, including two investigations into possible improper bidding, two canceled contracts and, most recently, a death on the construction site.
The facility, which will open with capacity to hold 1,000 people, is a key part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s moves to more than double the space it has nationwide to detain immigrants as the Trump administration pushes for more arrests and the agency prepares for a historic influx of cash.
Once seen as the answer to ICE’s detention space crunch — after a previous attempt at an answer, the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, failed — Fort Bliss is now also an example of the complications that can arise when ICE scrambles to expand detention. The agency has been under intense pressure from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and others in the Trump administration to quickly ramp up the number of immigrants it arrests. It is currently holding a record 60,000 immigrants in detention, according to an ICE official. And it is out of space.
“It’s safe to say all ICE field offices are looking for more ICE detention space,” another ICE official told NBC News.
Like the “Alligator Alcatraz” camp that Florida has built to detain immigrants, the facility at Fort Bliss is a temporary, soft-sided tent style structure. ICE is increasingly leaning toward building that kind of detention space rather than brick and mortar facilities.
Last week, two of the major private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, both of which are heavily involved in ICE detention, told shareholders they expect soft-sided facilities to be a majorpart of the push to ramp up capacity, in part because the government can get them up and running much faster.
“You can’t build a brick and mortar newly built facility in probably less than two years,” one former Department of Homeland Security official said.
In order to expand detention capacity, though, ICE needs money. And though the Republican tax and spending act known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” provides $45 billion for that purpose, those dollars have not yet started to flow.
Once they do, there may still be obstacles.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, under whose purview ICE falls, has instituted a new guideline at ICEthat requires any expenditure over $100,000 to be personally approved by her, which may also slow new construction, according to a private prison industry executive. (As NBC News has previously reported, Noem instituted a similar rule at FEMA, which she also oversees.)
In a statement to NBC News about the approvals, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the department is “rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and is reprioritizing appropriated dollars.”
“Secretary Noem is delivering accountability to the U.S. taxpayer, which Washington bureaucrats have ignored for decades at the expense of American citizens,” McLaughlin said.
But a current DHS official, three former DHS officials and the private prison industry executive all told NBC News that, while tent facilities are faster to build, they cost more in the long run.
The federal government’s cost per immigrant in a typical brick and mortar single adult detention center is roughly $125-$165 per night, according to one of the former DHS officials and the private prison industry executive. But the cost per detainee in a tent facility can be more than double that because of the added expenses related to providing things like food, laundry, air conditioning and running water in the remote areas where tent facilities are being built.
Security is also a logistical challenge because it is easier for detainees to escape soft-sided structures, so tent facilities typically need more security staff on site.
In the past, tent facilities have been used by Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Health and Human Services to hold migrants who had just crossed the border. But those facilities are intended to hold people only for short periods of time. CBP is only allowed to hold people for 72 hours for processing, after which they are either released, returned to Mexico or sent to ICE. And HHS prioritizes sending children to family members or other U.S. adult sponsors as quickly as possible.
The Biden administration housed children who came across the border without guardians in tents at Fort Bliss in 2021. Whistleblowers decried the conditions inside and said the facility was mismanaged.
Now, though, the administration envisions holding immigrants in tent facilities for the period between when they are arrested and when they are deported, which can span six months or even longer in some cases.
That idea was first put to the test after Trump decided in the first weeks of his new term that he wanted to use the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a facility with capacity to hold 30,000 immigrants.
Many people even within the administration were surprised by the decision and Trump’s announcement of it, but they immediately moved to implement his plan. By March, though, as NBC News has previously reported, there was a recognition within the administration that it was not truly workable, and attention started shifting to places like Fort Bliss. As of mid-May, Guantánamo had only held a total of 500 immigrants, and never more than 200 at any one time.
In response to questions regarding the use of soft-sided facilities, McLaughlin told NBC News that DHS is “pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity” and “calling on more states and local governments to help expand detention capacity.”
Problems at Fort Bliss
DHS had asked the Department of Defense to look into alternative locations for detention centers, including Fort Bliss, in February, shortly after the administration moved on from the plan to hold 30,000 people at Guantánamo, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News at the time.
The effort since then to get even 1,000 new beds up and running at Fort Bliss has been fraught with challenges.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE detention is not supposed to be punitive. Under court settlements, the facilities ICE uses must meet certain standards, providing for instance air conditioning, running water, and access to daily showers and hot meals. Part of the challenge of building at Fort Bliss, a 1.12 million acre Army base in a desert location, is that Camp East Montana, the immigrant detention site there, requires its own sewage, plumbing and electrical systems, meaning contractors must work to bring in infrastructure such as portable showers.
The project has been the subject of at least two investigations by the Government Accountability Office for potentially improper bidding. A contract to build the facility was first put out for bid after DHS started looking into Fort Bliss in February, awarded to a company,then canceled by late April. A public posting about the cancelation cited an executive order signed by Trump dealing with “radical transparency” and “wasteful spending.”
The contract went out for bid again weeks later, this time offering it as two separate projects: One for building the facility, and one for running it. That offer was pulled before it was awarded; it is unclear why.
Finally in late July, it was awarded under a Navy contract program meant for small businesses, and construction began.
One of the former ICE officials told NBC News that running the contract through the Navy program guaranteed quick funding, but meant the work didn’t have the direct supervision by ICE that it would have under the typical process. Instead, while it is a Navy contract, the Army is in charge of ensuring workplace safety while the facility is built for ICE. The value of the contract for building the facility reportedly totals $1.2 billion; public records show the Army having contributed about $232 million of that.
The Acquisition Logistics Company, which has been serving as the top contractor overseeing the project, has come under scrutiny recently. According to public records, Acquisition Logistics is a small business run by Kenneth Wagner, 77, out of his single family home in Virginia. Prior to this contract the company’s largest contract, according to public records, appears to have been worth $16 million.
The company’s website currently presents little information aside from an address and a header saying “Site maintenance in progress.” Attempts to reach Wagner were unsuccessful — his voicemail was full, and an email sent to an address previously listed on the website bounced back.
An archived copy of the site says the company was founded in 2008 as a “veteran-owned, small disadvantaged business specializing in the entire acquisition-logistics lifecycle.” It also touted work it said it had done for the Marine Corps, FAA, Army and National Park Service. A call to the company’s chief operating officer was not returned.
After the contract was awarded to Acquisition Logistics, one of the companies that did not win, Gemini Tech Services, lodged a protest, but construction moved forward. On Monday, Gemini Tech Services filed a complaint in federal court.
The complaint is sealed, but a source familiar with it told NBC News that the company is seeking an immediate injunction to stop construction.
Beyond questions about the contracting process at Fort Bliss, there has also been tragedy. On July 21, 38-year-old Hector Gonzalez, who was employed by Disaster Management Group, one of multiple subcontractors on the project, died in a workplace accident.
“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,” said DMG spokesperson Tom McNicholas, who confirmed Gonzalez’s death.
The accident is currently under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, according to agency statements. DMG has since posted a job opening for a Site Safety Manager out of El Paso tasked with overseeing accident prevention plans and documenting safety incidents.
Asked by NBC News about Gonzalez’s death, DHS did not specifically comment on the matter, and referred all contracting questions regarding Camp East Montana to DOD.
“We are aware of a GAO protest for the Acquisition Logistics contract. We cannot discuss specifics because the issue is currently in litigation. However, we can confirm that this protest is unrelated to the recent death, which is under investigation,” an Army spokesperson said.
