Trump Plans to Use Military Sites Across the Country to Detain Undocumented Immigrants

The Trump administration is ramping up plans to detain undocumented immigrants at military sites across the United States, a significant expansion of efforts by the White House to use wartime resources to make good on the president’s promised mass deportations.

President Trump’s team is developing a deportation hub at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, that could eventually hold up to 10,000 undocumented immigrants as they go through the process of being deported, according to three officials familiar with the plan.

Fort Bliss would serve as a model as the administration aims to develop more detention facilities on military sites across the country — from Utah to the area near Niagara Falls — to hold potentially thousands more people and make up for a shortfall of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a plan that is still in its early stages and has not yet been finalized.

Previous administrations have held some immigrants at military bases, most recently children who would then be released into the country to the care of relatives or friends. The bases served as an emergency backup when the federal government’s shelter system for migrant children reached capacity.

But the Trump administration plan would expand that practice by establishing a nationwide network of military detention facilities for immigrants who are subject to deportation. The proposal would mark a major escalation in the militarization of immigration enforcement after Mr. Trump made clear when he came into office that he wanted to rely even more on the Pentagon to curtail immigration.