Fwd: ICE Detentions Surge at Northeast El Paso Tent Facility (El Paso Matters)

[Molly Molloy]

Thanks to Lois for sending link to this article in El Paso Matters...

 

https://elpasomatters.org/2025/06/24/ice-detention-facility-el-paso/

 

The number of immigrants being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the massive white tent camp in far Northeast El Paso has surged from under 100 to more than 900 in a matter of days as raids and roundups throughout the country continue.

The soft-sided facility, which was previously used by Border Patrol to process incoming migrants, was turned over to ICE in March to use as a decompression and staging area for deportation flights under the Trump administration’s mass removal plans. It has a capacity of about 1,000 people.

Nearly 56,400 people were in ICE detention nationwide as of June 15, according to the nonpartisan research center TRAC, or Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. TRAC showed the Northeast El Paso facility housed fewer than an average of five people daily in March, about 30 per day in late April and 75 the week ending June 9. 

An unknown number of detainees were moved to the El Paso tent facility in mid-June following an escape at a privately run detention facility in New Jersey.

In addition to that tent camp, the El Paso Service Processing Center, an ICE detention facility on Montana Avenue on the Eastside, held about 775 people on June 9. That facility has a capacity of about 1,000 people.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, who toured the Northeast facility Friday, told El Paso Matters about 900 people were being detained there the previous day. The majority of detainees were single adult men, although some single adult women were also being held there. 

The average length of stay for most detainees was five days as the immigrants were either transferred to other facilities or deported. The facility has housed about 7,500 since March 30, Escobar added.

The tent facility is in addition to the one being built on Fort Bliss, which will have capacity to detain up to 3,500 people and is expected to open in the coming weeks.

“This is in many respects the same I had seen previously under the Biden administration but with a very different mission set,” Escobar said about the Northeast facility. She described the conditions inside the facility as “not bad at all,” and said detainees reported having adequate water, food, showers and access to their attorneys.

ICE didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

The 153,000-square-foot facility was erected on 28 acres off U.S. Highway 54 South in January 2023 to help with the influx of migrants arriving at the border. The facility was under control of the Border Patrol, which processed and vetted those who entered the country and turned themselves in to agents. 

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is operating the massive soft-sided tent camp in far Northeast El Paso, which is being used as a decompression and deportation staging site. (Cindy Ramirez/El Paso Matters)

Under ICE, the facility is now used as a decompression site to relieve other detention centers from overcrowding as well as a staging site to prepare immigrants for deportation. About half the detainees there are deported, with the rest moved to other sites, Escobar said.

ICE conducted 190 deportation flights in May – 27 of them from El Paso, according to data collected by Tom Cartwright, a refugee and immigrant advocate who tracks ICE flights. That’s more than any other month since September 2021, according to the New York Times.

From January to May, 117 deportation flights departed from El Paso – compared with 120 from June 2024 to December 2024, Cartwright’s data shows. 

Escobar said she was told El Paso was seeing four to five deportation flights a day.

About 80 deportation-related flights left from El Paso to other cities from June 1-22, including three to El Salvador and one to Venezuela, according to data provided by Cartwright to El Paso Matters this week. Others included flights to San Antonio, Dallas, San Diego and Phoenix. Eighty deportation-related flights were recorded to El Paso from Harlingen, Texas; Opa Locka, Florida; Alexandria, Virginia; San Antonio, Las Vegas and Phoenix, among others.

Congressional oversight debated

Escobar said she didn’t have any difficulty gaining access to the Northeast El Paso facility, unlike other members of Congress who have been denied entrance to detention facilities in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities.. She said she notified ICE ahead of her visit. 

While members of Congress have the authority under federal law to make unannounced oversight visits to such immigration facilities, the Department of Homeland Security on June 19 issued new guidance asking that ICE be given 72 hours notice for a visit.

Escobar said she plans to visit the ICE facility on Montana Avenue in the coming weeks, adding that she’s particularly interested after Amnesty International reported finding “widespread human rights violations” at the site.

The nongovernmental human rights organization in May released its findings from an April visit, saying detainees faced systematic mistreatment, arbitrary detention and a lack of due process and access to legal resources. ICE at the time told El Paso Matters that it would conduct an internal review of the report.

‘Big Beautiful Bill’ gives ICE $75 billion for enforcement

Escobar said such camps “are only going to get more expansive and expensive” as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller pushes for ICE to round up 3,000 people per day.

The funding for the detention centers is coming from the Department of Defense budget after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border on his first day in office in January. By declaring an emergency, the government can award multi-million-dollar contracts without the bidding process.

“The big winner will be the corporations that will perform the work in these immigrant detention networks,” Escobar said, referring to the private, for-profit contractors running the detention facilities – including those that construct the facilities to those that provide staffing, security, health care, food, sanitation and other services.

The budget reconciliation bill, known as the Big Beautiful Bill, would provide ICE $75 billion in supplemental funding over four years for the agency to expand enforcement operations in the country – with about $45 billion of that for immigrant detention to house more than 100,000 people on any given day, according to the bill. The supplemental funding for detention represents an 800% increase compared to fiscal year 2024. 

About $14.4 billion of the $75 billion is designated for ICE transportation and removal operations, supporting the deportation of up to 1 million people annually.

The bill may head to the Senate floor this week. The House and Senate would have to negotiate differences in the bills passed by each chamber and pass a revised version before sending it to President Trump for his signature.

“Every American seeing this happen today should know that this is being put on the backs of taxpayers,” Escobar said, adding that the spending will add to the country’s deficit and not reduce the cost of living as Trump had promised.

Republicans such as Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose 23rd Congressional District includes a small portion of El Paso’s Lower Valley and stretches into San Antonio, have applauded the bill.

“This is a big win (to) the tune of billions of dollars for border security,” Gonzales said on X, formerly Twitter, after the House passed the bill in May. “Our district has been ground zero for it.”

He said the funds will provide critical detention space to deport “hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens,” and added that Fort Bliss would likely be the “epicenter” for deportations.

Nearly 72% of ICE detainees have no criminal record, and many have only minor offenses such as traffic violations, TRAC data as of June 15 shows.

The National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group that supports immigration reform, said the bill would fundamentally alter how the United States approaches immigration policy.

“These changes would be a striking departure from our longstanding history as a welcoming nation that offers protection to the persecuted and orderly pathways for those willing to follow the rules to seek a better life here,” the organization said on its website explaining the implications of the reconciliation bill. “As the bill moves to the Senate, policymakers will need to consider the practical implications of these changes for immigrant communities, mixed-status families, and the broader immigration system’s capacity to process cases efficiently and humanely.”