Camp East Montana, the newest and largest of the new migrant detention centers opening throughout the nation, has been met with criticism from immigration advocates after formally opening Sunday.
Protesters greeted the opening of the ability over the weekend.
The detention middle, on the grounds of Texas’ Fort Bliss, can at present home 1,000 migrants, with officers saying it could actually finally increase to carry 5,000.
“We’re demanding that this administration do what they are saying they are going to do if they are not going to shut the camps,” Marisa Limon Garza, government director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Middle, informed El Paso ABC affiliate KVIA. “At a minimal, we want entry to individuals who have due course of and will have entry to attorneys.”
The criticism got here as a federal choose on Monday heard arguments from lawyers for detainees on the Florida detention middle referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz,” who say they lack correct legal professional entry and are being held with none formal prison or immigration costs in opposition to them.
Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who toured the brand new Texas detention middle Monday, stated of the ability’s price ticket, “I need you to consider how a lot good that cash may do in El Paso if it had been spent on the neighborhood, if it had been spent on entry to baby take care of El Paso youngsters, if it had been spent on common pre-Ok for El Paso youngsters, if it had been spent on well being take care of El Pasoans.”
“There’s a large quantity of excellent that that cash may do for El Pasoans, however it’s as an alternative getting used to fund mass deportation by the Trump administration,” she stated.
Protesters opposing mass deportations by ICE maintain indicators throughout a protest held on the Cassidy Gate at Fort Bliss, the U.S. Military base the place a big new ICE detention facility is being constructed, in El Paso, Texas, August 17, 2025.
Paul Ratje/Reuters
“It is necessary for individuals to grasp we aren’t speaking gardeners or housekeepers,” stated Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who visited the ability final week. “These are individuals who did not present as much as court-ordered hearings. There is no such thing as a due course of concern. They haven’t any authorized proper to be right here.”
“Beneath President Trump’s management, we’re working at turbo pace on cost-effective and modern methods to ship on the American individuals’s mandate for mass deportations of prison unlawful aliens,” Division of Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated in an announcement Monday. “The One Huge Lovely Invoice has offered historic funding to assist us perform this mandate, particularly by securing sufficient detention capability to keep up a mean day by day inhabitants of 100,000 unlawful aliens and 80,000 new ICE beds.”
“The Fort Bliss Facility will provide the whole lot a standard ICE detention facility affords, together with entry to authorized illustration and a regulation library, entry to visitation, leisure house, medical therapy house and nutritionally balanced meals,” McLaughlin stated. “It additionally offers crucial lodging for disabilities, food plan, and spiritual beliefs.”
ABC Information’ Luke Barr contributed to this report.
