A bulldozer on April 10, 2025, sits at a former range control location known as Site Monitor at Fort Bliss, Texas. The site will be used to build a detention facility to house migrants. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
AUSTIN, Texas — The Army has awarded a contract for a 5,000-capacity migrant detention facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Fort Bliss in west Texas.
The service on Friday awarded a nearly $232 million firm-fixed-price contract to the veteran-owned company Acquisition Logistics to build and operate the short-term detention facility for single adults, according to the Pentagon. The contract ends Sept. 30, 2027.
Army engineers in April finished leveling the 60-acre site that is accessible through El Paso streets without having to enter the gates of Fort Bliss. It is located behind a public transportation park-and-ride site on Montana Avenue. The land once housed a range control site named Site Monitor, according to Fort Bliss.
The site will hold temporary, soft-sided holding facilities, the Pentagon said in April when plans were approved. The Army will manage the contract, but is not involved in the operations of the facility.
Pentagon officials declined to comment Tuesday on the contract, and the Army could not be reached for comment.
Army engineers use heavy equipment to remove shrubs and level land on April 10, 2025, at Fort Bliss, Texas, as two soldiers watch. The site will be used to build a detention facility to house migrants. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
The contract announcement came Monday, just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth notified members of Congress of the proposal to temporarily house detained migrants at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.
The detention facilities at military bases are part of President Donald Trump’s push to detain people in the United States and deport them. The government has removed more than 111,000 people from the country in fiscal 2025, which began Oct. 1, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Since Trump took office in January, the Defense Department has become increasingly involved in immigration and border operations, including working with Customs and Border Protection along the border with Mexico and providing security for federal agents making immigration-related arrests in California.
Fort Bliss also hosts troops deployed to the southwest border and has loaned its airfield to conduct deportation flights. The base is roughly 1,700 square miles that stretch into New Mexico and offers large swaths of open desert terrain.
It has been used in the past to house unaccompanied child migrants in the U.S. and in 2021 to support Afghan refugees who fled their country when the government collapsed and the U.S. military left.
Bloomberg News reported the latest contract to detain migrants at Fort Bliss has a value of nearly $1.3 billion. It is the largest contract Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics has received from the government, and it does not appear to have experience with detention facilities, Bloomberg reported.
Acquisition Logistics’ bid was selected from among 12 others, according to the Pentagon. The Army Field Directorate Office at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston is managing the contract.
