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Mystery Surrounds $1.2B Detention Camp Project

Fort Bliss, Texas contract was awarded to small, inexperienced business
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 28, 2025 4:25 PM CDT
Mystery Surrounds $1.2B Detention Camp Project
This Aug. 7, 2025, satellite image shows construction of large white tents for a new immigrant detention center at Fort Bliss, a US Army base outside El Paso, Texas.   (Planet Labs via AP)

When President Trump's administration last month awarded a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to build and operate what it says will become the nation's largest immigration detention complex, it didn't turn to a large government contractor or even a firm that specializes in private prisons. Instead, it handed the project on a military base to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that has no listed experience running a correction facility and had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million, the AP reports. The company also lacks a functioning website and lists as its address a modest home in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer.

  • A June 9 solicitation notice for the Fort Bliss project specified the contractor will be responsible for building and operating the detention center, including providing security and medical care. The bidding was open only to small firms such as Acquisition Logistics, which receives preferential status because it's classified as a veteran and Hispanic-owned small disadvantaged business.

  • The mystery over the award only deepened last week as the new facility began to accept its first detainees. The Pentagon has refused to release the contract or explain why it selected Acquisition Logistics over a dozen other bidders to build the massive tent camp at Fort Bliss in west Texas. At least one competitor has filed a complaint.
  • The secretive—and brisk—contracting process is emblematic, experts said, of the government's broader rush to fulfill Trump's pledge to arrest and deport an estimated 10 million migrants living in the US without permanent legal status. As part of that push, the government is turning increasingly to the military to handle tasks that had traditionally been left to civilian agencies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved using Fort Bliss for the new detention center, and the administration has hopes to build more at other bases.

  • A member of Congress who recently toured the camp said she was concerned that such a small and inexperienced firm had been entrusted to build and run a facility expected to house up to 5,000 migrants. "It's far too easy for standards to slip," said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss. "Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility."
  • Named Camp East Montana for the closest road, the facility is being built in the sand and scrub Chihuahuan Desert, where summertime temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit and heat-related deaths are common. The 60-acre site is near the US-Mexico border and the El Paso International Airport, a key hub for deportation flights. Three white tents, each about 810 feet long, have been erected, according to satellite imagery examined by the AP.

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