The Trump administration has opened the sprawling "Lone Star Lockup," the largest immigration enforcement detention site in the country. It opened with a 1,000-bed capacity, but will be expanding to 5,000 within about 18 months.
The Washington Examiner reported that the new detention site within the boundaries of the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss, just outside El Paso, brought praise from Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, and a heap of criticism from outspoken Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar.
Rep. Escobar posted Monday on social media, "Today I spent over two hours conducting oversight at the new $1.2 billion migrant detention facility on Fort Bliss. The facts are simple: Donald Trump's mass deportation plan is unbelievably costly and failing to target the 'worst of the worst'."
But Sen. Cornyn said in a post that the people who will be detained at the site are indeed criminals. "We're not talking about gardeners, housekeepers, or people like that," he wrote. "We're talking about as many as 291,000 individuals who are called criminal aliens with criminal charges pending or criminal convictions who have exhausted all of their legal remedies," Cornyn said.
The new "Lone Star Lockup" is just the latest in a series of detention centers to be opened by the Trump administration as it moves aggressively to find and deport criminal illegal aliens.
Fort Bliss was a site used by the government earlier in the year to temporarily hold illegal aliens in preparation to load them into aircraft to be flown outside the U.S.
The government's "Alligator Alcatraz" in the wilds of the Everglades in Florida has been under continued legal attack by detractors trying to stop the administration from making good on campaign promises to reverse the results of open borders and uncontrolled immigration.
Fort Bliss was also used by the previous administration of former President Joe Biden as a site to house unaccompanied immigrant children.
The New York Times reported in February as the administration was putting its immigration enforcement plans into high gear that as many as ten military bases in the U.S. would be used to site detention centers.
Local El Paso Matters reported that the site at Fort Bliss began accepting detainees at the start of the month and, as of Monday, was near the current capacity of 1,000, and all of those held at the site are men.
Jim Mishler ✉
Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.
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