XPost: alt.politics.immigration, alt.california.illegals, ca.politics
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics
Federal immigration authorities want to use a massive tent facility in California for deportation efforts as they exhaust detention space across
the country, according to two people familiar with the plans.
The tent site, located outside of San Diego, has been operating as a
temporary processing center since US Customs and Border Protection opened
the 130,786-square-foot location in 2023. With border crossings at the
lowest levels in decades, CBP has begun shutting down all but the San Diego-area facility and one other site, the agency said in a statement Thursday.
Converting the California center is the latest sign that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles detention and removal operations, is
trying to keep pace with President Donald Trump’s calls to arrest, detain
and deport millions of migrants. So far, those efforts have been hindered
in part by the agency’s detention space, which numbers fewer than 50,000
beds. On Wednesday, a senior administration official told reporters that
ICE had maxed out its detention capacity. The official said ICE has made
about 33,000 arrests since Trump took office.
“The current immigration detention capacity they have, while extremely
high already, is still insufficient to meet their goals," said Nayna Gupta
of the American Immigration Council. Gupta, policy director for the
immigration advocacy group, called the effort an “enormous waste of
resources” and noted that the federal government can enforce civil
immigration laws without detention.
Representatives for CBP, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did
not respond to requests for comment about the San Diego-area facility.
The takeover signals a new strategy for the Trump administration as it
seeks to reach agreements with Latin American nations to take deportees
from both their own countries and others. The administration has already
had to at least temporarily walk back plans to house migrants in
immigration detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because those facilities
would not meet ICE’s stricter requirements.
Trump is set to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in the coming days,
using the law to fast-track deportations of certain migrants, including transfers to Guantanamo, CNN reported, citing multiple officials familiar
with the situation.
CBP began rolling out temporary facilities during the Obama administration
to grapple with surges in border crossings — primarily unaccompanied
children and immigrant families. The practice continued during the first
Trump administration and later under President Joe Biden. Deployed
Resources, which operates the California site being transferred to ICE,
has received CBP contracts worth more than $4.1 billion over the last five years.
But using a CBP facility raises other concerns: Its sites are meant to
hold people for short stays, not weeks or longer, as is frequently the
case with people in ICE custody.
In a press release announcing the opening in 2023, CBP described the San Diego-area tent facility as a climate-controlled, weatherproof site that
can hold about 500 people and includes designated areas for eating,
sleeping and personal hygiene.
Even though such CBP sites are a step up from traditional Border Patrol facilities, they’re still far from what ICE typically requires, said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration. “You need recreation, you need quality food, you need access to medical. It’s very different from a field triage.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-13/san-diego-area-tent- facility-set-to-be-converted-into-an-ice-detention-site
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