Trump Awards $1.26 Billion Contract to Build Biggest Immigrant Detention Center in US

[Zorro]

Tent camp with 5,000 beds would be the largest such facility in the country, fueling fears of advocates who say they often don’t meet basic needs

The federal government has awarded a contract to build and operate a sprawling tent camp at Fort Bliss, an Army base in Texas, to serve as an immigrant detention center.

In the Trump administration’s latest move to vastly expand space for such detention, the work would turn the base in El Paso, with more than 1 million acres and an airport, into a deportation hub with 5,000 beds, according to a US Department of Defense contract notice. That would make it the largest immigration detention facility in the country.

The contract for Fort Bliss is worth $1.26 billion and was awarded to Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics Company through a special program that directs federal dollars to small businesses, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked to not be named discussing something that hasn’t been shared publicly. The Army is putting up $232 million for the work, the Defense Department notice says. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the contract had been awarded but did not include its value or the winning bidder. Ken Wagner, president and chief executive officer of Acquisition Logistics, declined to comment.

The Fort Bliss contract is by far the biggest ever for Acquisition Logistics, which Wagner, a retired Naval flight officer, founded in 2008. It specializes in supply chain management and other technical services, particularly for the US military, according to Wagner’s LinkedIn profile. Acquisition Logistics has received contracts worth roughly $29 million from the Defense Department over the past five fiscal years, mainly for logistics support work, according to government records. Most of that was through set-asides for small businesses.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-22/trump-awards-immigration-detention-center-contract-for-fort-bliss-in-texas?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1MzM2NDM0MCwiZXhwIjoxNzUzOTY5MTQwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTWlQ0MVJHUFdDUUMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDNjgyQTUwQzJCRDM0MTFCQTgwQjEwQjZEQjczQzM1MSJ9.vYXjZKb28WsQtD15jEjdt4GRm94LK1HZJeqUNEH28As

A $1.26B "tent camp" contract awarded to a "small business". Hmmm....

[Hugin]

1. No doubt the highest and only bidder...

This whole sham is the PPP of the second Imposition. How much of that money is going to show up in PACs and pockets. Follow the money.

[BoRaGard]

2. The repubes spent a decade saying Dems would build detention centers

That, of course, was a big fat stinking lie.

The GOP always planned detention centers, wanted to pin the shit on Dems.

Now they are doing what they condemned.

Damn Satanic of the repubes, if you ask any true Christian.

[Greg_In_SF]

20. We

did build detention centers.

[underpants]

3. ALC is headquartered in Henrico County VA

Which wraps around the north end of Richmond. ALC is in the west end.

[CNYHarris]

4. Ft Hellscape

Leaked video shows Texas child migrant camp, where staff allege kids are sexually abused and COVID-19 is rampant

They alleged children were sexually assaulted and denied medical care

Some staff and children said that kids held the facility are sexually assaulted

The BBC's investigation looked at a tent camp at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, where more than 2,000 teenaged children are held.

In an audio recording shared with the BBC, a worker says: "We have already caught staff with minors inappropriately."

Another employee said told the BBC that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spoke to staff there about a rape.

"DHS mentioned there was a rape - they are giving the girls pregnancy tests," she said. "And I heard the other night that another contractor was caught in a boys' tent, you know, doing things with him."

One employee told the BBC: "Hundreds of children have tested positive for COVID."

The BBC also reported that children in need of urgent medical care had been neglected.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/leaked-video-shows-texas-child-091000260.html?guccounter=1

The US is barbarian.

[Bengus81]

5. People on DU and other places called this SHIT over a year ago..and here we are

Hey FAT Hitler....I thought you were "going to deport 11 million illegal immigrants" Nah...people knew that concentration camps (soon to be work camps) would be the end result not deportation.

[Bengus81]

6. Wonder if Halliburton bid on it? Eh...they probably made enough off the Iraq CON JOB

that they don't bid on stuff like that anymore.

[flashman13]

7. A quick back of the envelope calculation: $252,000 per bed. WTF??

Tents!

[SergeStorms]

17. Concertina wire is expensive.

I was going to post the same thing until I checked the responses.

You can bet Hair Furor is receiving a kickback of monstrous proportions for this contract. Everything is transactional with him. EVERYTHING!

[Owens]

8. Another Concentration Camp

Weird how our veterans care is cut but suddenly we have enough money for another concentration camp, and of course the money goes right into the pockets of his billionaire donors

[Owens]

9. Did the House give him the money???

Or was this in the big beautiful bill?

[WestMichRad]

16. Was in that big gawd awful bill

From Snopes:
The bill allocates… “at least $29.85 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement until Sept. 30, 2029, with an additional $45 billion appropriated to the agency for detention facilities.”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-budget-big-beautiful-bill/

[Ping Tung]

10. In other news: Alligator prices rise around the world.

[newdeal2]

11. Please rename it the Melania " I don't really care" Memorial Concentration Camp

[Dixiegrrrl]

13. If they can rename the Kennedy Center after her

We can indeed call a concentration camp after her, and use the name often. Very often.

[Turbineguy]

12. $252,000 per bed.

In a fucking tent.

[Diraven]

15. Someone is getting very rich off this

I guess the only bright side is they're wasting so much money they could have made the concentration camps way bigger.

[peggysue2]

14. I understand another 'detention camp' is planned . . .

For Fort Dix/McGuire Lakehurst base in NJ.

That's not far from where I grew up. It's already being tagged as the New Jersey Gulag.

Perfect!

[BidenRocks]

18. NO!!

Just Fucking NO!!!

This will define us for over a hundred years easy.

Forget the Third Reich, this is worse because we are a heavily armed nation who does nothing!

What will be a bridge too far?

Fuck the NRA! So much for fighting tyranny!

[B.See]

19. correction: CONCENTRATION CAMP

More to follow. And they won't just be for "immigrants."

[ancianita]

21. I can't' believe that the US military willingly goes along with this. It's such a racist and

corrupt contract, that it even qualifies as an illegal order. It's the biggest army base in the U.S., so big some of it's in TX and some of it's in NM. Wtf is wrong with its commander Taylor?! Does he really have to carry out his felon-in-chief's order?

Why turn a badass high functioning fighters military base into a gulag? wtaf

[Ilsa]

22. Kegsbreath's orders, no doubt.

I think most military leaders are trying to survive the next 3.5 years without letting Flynn-like crazies get a stronger foothold.

[samnsara]

23. and when trumps dead and gone we can use it as a homeless shelter!