Texas’ Fort Bliss Army base is the site of what is slated to become the largest immigrant detention center in the country.
Dubbed Lone Star Lockup, the facility will hold up to 1,000 detainees but could become the largest-ever detention camp with a plan to expand it to 5,000 beds by 2027, the Washington Examiner reported.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it has already begun accepting a limited number of detainees in preparation for the ramp-up.
Officially named Camp East Montana, the facility is housed on the U.S. Army base Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas. The 1,000-bed detention camp is needed to house illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, joining the recently opened Alligator Alcatraz in Florida and the Speedway Slammer in Indiana.
The Lone Star Lockup will hold some of the “worst of the worst” criminal illegal aliens as they are detained and processed for deportation. It’s part of the Trump administration’s plan to carry out the “largest-ever” deportation operation in U.S. history.
ICE has reported more than 56,000 illegal immigrants are currently in custody, a sharp increase from the roughly 20,000 average during the Biden administration.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, visited the facility last week and applauded the effort. Detainees will be illegal immigrants and criminals with pending deportation orders who have exhausted all legal appeals.
In a clip shared on social media, Cornyn added, “I think it’s really important for people to understand we’re not talking about gardeners, housekeepers, or people like that. We’re talking about as many as 291,000 individuals who are called criminal aliens with criminal charges pending or criminal convictions who have exhausted all of their legal remedies.”
Texas Senator John Cornyn visited Fort Bliss Monday to tour what is to become the largest migrant detention center in the U.S., Camp East Montana aka "Lone Star Lockup." https://t.co/cPYNJEmWeI #LoneStarLockup #Immigration #Border pic.twitter.com/gJCReOiz2o
— KFOX14 News (@KFOX14) August 12, 2025
Lone Star Lockup was funded by a $1.2 billion Defense Department contract, made possible through funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill. The legislation allocated up to $175 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to build immigration facilities nationwide.
The detention center is being built by a private contractor on a remote section of the Army post. The base is located on the edge of the Texas-New Mexico border and is home to 90,000 service members.
The facility will house only single adult men and women — not families or children, Cornyn told reporters at a news conference outside the post, per KFOX 14 News.
In addition to beds, it contains space for legal access, medical treatment, recreation and meals.
Cornyn said he supports building more detention centers, calling them “safe, humane facilities” and, in many cases, “a vast improvement over where detainees came from.”
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has repeatedly said ICE doesn’t hold people punitively. ICE detention facilities are designed to detain people while they have their due process or await deportation — not hold them for an indefinite period of time.
As ICE detains more illegal immigrants, the agency needs space to hold them. Gone are the days of catch-and-release or allowing criminal illegals to roam freely around the country, which was commonplace under President Joe Biden’s open border policies.
DHS has partnered with the State of Florida on Alligator Alcatraz, and the State of Indiana on the Speedway Slammer to expand detention space.
“These partnerships give the Trump administration the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered the country illegally under the previous administration,” DHS said in a previous news release. “These new facilities expand facility and bed space by the thousands.”
Democrat politicians continue to whine about conditions in the detention facilities during “oversight visits” and press conferences aired by legacy media outlets. Yet, they failed to visit immigrants processing centers and inhumane facilities that housed immigrants when they entered under the Biden administration.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, appeared on Fox Business “The Evening Edit” last month and blasted his Democrat colleagues for never visiting the border, where unaccompanied minor children were kept together in cages, during Biden’s term.
DHS said it receives daily media inquiries on false allegations about Alligator Alcatraz. The department has defended conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, fueled by false claims and hoaxes being spread by social media and legacy media reports.
“The media is clearly desperate for these allegations of inhumane conditions at this facility to be true,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “When will the media stop peddling hoaxes about illegal alien detention centers and start focusing on American victims of illegal alien crime?”
