Here are the first aerial views of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities currently under construction at Fort Bliss in El Paso.
The detention center on the U.S. Army Post is set to be the largest in the United States, holding 5,000 people. The facilities began receiving the first 1,000 detainees on Aug. 1, with plans to expand the facility by 250 beds each week.
The facilities are not visible from public spaces.
The El Paso Times has reached out to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to tour the facility, but received no response to any media inquiries.
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What do we know about the detention facility?
Former U.S. Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll announced that construction of the detention facility was imminent in March, following his visit to Fort Bliss and the El Paso area.
During the news conference Fort Bliss Deputy Committee General Paul Krattiger said that the detention facility would be constructed at the location known as "Site Monitor," which is just off of Montana Avenue and George Dieter Drive.
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While the administration of President Donald Trump initially said the facility would hold up to 10,000 detainees, this number was lowered to 5,000.
The Henrico, Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics LLC company was awarded a $231,878,229 firm-fixed-price contract to establish and operate a detention facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The contract comes on the heels of Presidential Executive Order 14159, which outlines using "national security assets for law and order."
Here is what the El Paso Times photos show
The images obtained by the El Paso Times show extensive temporary structures being constructed in the West Texas desert on the periphery of Fort Bliss.
Cleared land can be seen for the expansion of the facilities.
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Who is the government holding there?
The Fort Bliss facilities are set to hold up to 5,000 single adults scheduled for deportation. The immigrants held there are scheduled to be there for a short-term period before they are removed from the country.
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What are the other detention centers in El Paso area
There are currently three other detention centers in the El Paso area.
ICE operates a detention facility and processing center on Montana Avenue, near the El Paso International Airport. There is another facility north of the city on Highway 54 and another facility in Otero, New Mexico.
The three facilities can hold up to 3,000 people.
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The processing center on Montana Avenue has been accused of human rights violations. Amnesty International raised concerns about the facilities in a report in May 2025.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, has regularly carried out Congressional oversight visits to the facilities, where she has sought to guarantee humane treatment of immigrants held in the detention centers. She was blocked from visiting the Montana Avenue facility in June 2025, leading to her filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
She has raised concerns over carrying out oversight at the Fort Bliss detention center.
"It is going to be very challenging to continue to provide oversight if we don't challenge the Trump administration in court," Escobar said in a news conference on July 30. "The lawsuit is pretty critical, especially given the massive expansion of immigration detention that is going to happen as the result of Republicans giving tens of billions of dollars to private corporations."
El Paso Times reporter Kristian Jaime contributed to this report.
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:[email protected]; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: First aerial images of ICE immigrant detention facility at Fort Bliss
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