Preliminary paperwork is now underway for the construction of a large migrant deportation center that will go up within the boundaries of Fort Bliss in El Paso.
“The process of preparing it and getting it ready to be built out will start to occur any day,” Daniel Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army, remarked to reporters during a visit to El Paso.
As proposed, the facility will be built near the intersection of Montana Avenue and George Dieter Drive and may have the ability to house up to 10,000 migrants at any given time.
Exactly what the center will contain, according to the El Paso Times, is currently unknown, noting that Driscoll offered no details regarding whether the facility would be used “for family units, single males, women, or unaccompanied minors.”
It is thought that the facility will be able to process migrants or detainees for a 60-day evaluation period.
Fort Bliss is the second largest military base in the country, only slightly smaller than the entire state of Delaware, and for two years during the Biden administration housed an emergency intake shelter for unaccompanied migrant children.
Driscoll said the location of Fort Bliss along U.S./Mexican border makes it a “natural fit,” and added that one of the goals of the new facility would be to assist Border Patrol officers in their patrolling efforts.
“What we are hoping to do is have enough facility and enough manpower so that they don’t at any point ever feel overwhelmed and incentivize more illegal crossings,” Driscoll continued.
The new migrant processing facility is coming while Fort Bliss is engaged in a long-range plan to build just over 1,000 new housing units, while also upgrading some of the historic existing structures on the main post.
April 1, 2025
By Garry Boulard
