Trump Plans to Use Military Sites Across the Country to Detain Undocumented Immigrants

Old_Joe

Following are excerpts from a current New York Times report:

The move would be a drastic escalation by the White House to militarize immigration enforcement.

The Trump administration is ramping up plans to detain undocumented immigrants at military sites across the United States, a significant expansion of efforts by the White House to use wartime resources to make good on the president’s promised mass deportations.

President Trump’s team is developing a deportation hub at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, that could eventually hold up to 10,000 undocumented immigrants as they go through the process of being deported, according to three officials familiar with the plan. Fort Bliss would serve as a model as the administration aims to develop more detention facilities on military sites across the country — from Utah to the area near Niagara Falls — to hold potentially thousands more people and make up for a shortfall of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a plan that is still in its early stages and has not yet been finalized.

But the Trump administration plan would expand that practice by establishing a nationwide network of military detention facilities for immigrants who are subject to deportation. The proposal would mark a major escalation in the militarization of immigration enforcement after Mr. Trump made clear when he came into office that he wanted to rely even more on the Pentagon to curtail immigration.

Mr. Trump has made the promise of mass deportation a centerpiece of his presidency after a campaign in which American voters across party lines shifted to the right on immigration. So far, the Pentagon has deployed 5,000 active duty troops and National Guard members to the southern border to assist the Border Patrol, with the goal of doubling that number in coming weeks.

The administration is not yet arresting immigrants at a rate that would fill a nationwide network of military facilities. ICE officers made more than 15,000 arrests between Jan. 21 and Feb. 13, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That’s an average of just under 700 arrests a day, more than double the typical daily rate in recent years, including during the Biden administration, but far short of what White House officials want.

Once the administration finishes evaluating the detentions at Fort Bliss over about the next two months, it is considering expanding and detaining migrants at military bases. Those would include military facilities, including Air Force bases, along the border but also in Florida, New Jersey, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, Wyoming, Washington, Northern California and near Niagara Falls in upstate New York to assist in its plans for immigration roundups in the interior of the country, according to federal officials.

The Trump administration is strapped for detention beds to hold immigrants because of limited budget resources. As a result, ICE has generally detained only around 40,000 individuals in private prisons and local jails across the country in recent weeks. That’s down from the first Trump administration, when the agency held more than 50,000 in ICE beds. The use of military resources and facilities throughout the country provides the agency with easy-to-access beds to hold immigrants soon after they are arrested by ICE agents.

Mark

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