US races to build migrant tent camps after $45 billion funding boost, WSJ reports

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(Reuters) -U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is racing to build migrant tent camps nationwide after receiving $45 billion in new funding, aiming to expand detention capacity from 40,000 to 100,000 beds by year-end, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The agency is prioritizing large-scale tent facilities at military bases and ICE jails, including a 5,000-bed site at Fort Bliss in Texas and others in Colorado, Indiana, and New Jersey, the report added, citing documents seen by WSJ.

“ICE is pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity,” a senior ICE official told Reuters, adding that the “process does include housing detainees at certain military bases.”

Top U.S. officials at Homeland Security, including U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have expressed a preference for detention centers run by Republican states and local governments rather than private prison companies, the report said.

The agency declined to confirm the specifics of the plan to expand detention capacity.

Noem said last week that she was in talks with five Republican-led states to build other detention sites inspired by the “Alligator Alcatraz” facility in Florida.

“We’ve had several other states that are actually using Alligator Alcatraz as a model for how they can partner with us,” Noem told a press conference in Florida without naming any of the states.

(Reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft and Marguerita Choy)