Work on what is being called the nation’s “largest immigration detention center” is expected to begin later this summer at Fort Bliss in El Paso.
The Department of Defense has announced that it will spend upwards of $1.2 billion to build a facility that will be big enough to house around 5,000 beds.
The project will go up on a 60-acre site that was cleared and leveled by the Army in April. That site is located to the rear of a Sun Metro park-and-ride site on Montana Avenue.
The new facility is a response to stepped-up enforcement activities along the U.S./Mexico border. In the most recent available statistics, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said there were nearly 57,000 people in federal immigration detention centers.
That figure is up from the less than 40,000 being held earlier this year during the last month of the Biden administration.
There are dozens of immigration detention centers operated by ICE across the country. Those facilities, the agency has said, are used to “house aliens to secure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the U.S.”
“The size and scope” of the Fort Bliss facility, notes Military.com, “makes it one of the most significant investments in immigrant detention infrastructure in recent years.”
It is thought that the facility will primarily be used to house single adult detainees.
According to ICE the new project is officially scheduled for completion on September 30, 2027. A $1.2 billion contract has been awarded to the Richmond, Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics Company to build the facility.
Fort Bliss is seen as a logical location for the new detention center, not only because of its proximity to the border, but also for its 1,700-square-mile size, which takes in parts of New Mexico.
July 25, 2025
By Garry Boulard
