Doug MacMillan

60 violations in 50 days: Inside ICE’s giant tent facility at Ft. Bliss As the Trump Administration rushes to open massive makeshift holding centers nationwide, one former official called the list of violations at Fort Bliss among the worst she’s ever seen.

Read our story for more about the situation at Fort Bliss, where more than 1,400 people are being held despite these and other serious concerns about the conditions.

w/ @samueloakford.bsky.social, N. Kirkpatrick & @aaronschaffer.com www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Despite having a "dietician-approved" menu, people were being widely underfed. The facility planned to increase meal calories by 30%, but as of early Sept that had not happened yet, the ICE inspectors wrote.

Medical care was deficient:

💉 Medical charts left empty, health screenings never documented.

💊 One person was given psychotropic drugs but there was no record of them consenting to it.

😔 Another person was placed on suicide watch but there was no record of anyone watching them.

The facility lacked basic many policies and procedures required by ICE:

❌ No security plan
❌ No policies for helping the disabled
❌ No policy on strip searching
❌ No directions to guards on using lethal force, which inspectors called a "serious vulnerability"

Because it's an active construction site, only 1/4 planned recreation areas was built, so it had to be shared by 1200+ detainees. They each got 40 min recreation a few times a week. "This lack of recreation time is adding to the detainees' visible frustrations and unruliness" the inspectors wrote.

For weeks detainees were held virtually incommunicado. No phones, no visits with families, lawyers or ICE deportation officers to learn about their cases. Tablets used to make calls didn't work. "Most of them wanted to
know the status of their immigration case," inspectors wrote.

This month, ICE inspectors toured the giant new Fort Bliss tent camp for migrants, built in under two months.

They found 60 violations of federal detention standards, many of which directly impacted the safety of workers and detainees, we reported today in @washingtonpost.com

🧵-->

Explore ICE's planned facilities in your region or download the entire list of 125 new and expanded facilities using the handy table inside our story: wapo.st/45hE9fq

Other notable facilities slated to open:

-Puerto Rico's only large-scale ICE detention center
-Minnesota's only private prison
-California City facility will become largest ICE center in CA
-Irwin, a Georgia detention center closed after women alleged medical abuse
-Military bases in NJ & IN

Trump's ICE believes bigger is better. Number of detention centers over 1,000 beds:

Now: 29
End of year: 49

Photo: Ft. Bliss soft-sided detention site in Texas, expected to hold up to 5,000 migrants. (REUTERS/Paul Ratje)

YouTube video by Zoukis Consulting Group Reeves Detention Center | Reeves County Detention Center

One of the newly planned family centers for parents and children will be inside Reeves, a gigantic, 5,700-bed former federal prison known for understaffing, poor medical care and inmate rioting.

Reeves video by www.youtube.com/@zoukisconsu...

Trump plans to open at least two new family detention facilities, more than doubling the record for total family capacity set under the Obama and first Trump administrations.

ICE also plans to expand in states with few existing detention beds, including Oklahoma, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Number of states that can hold over 1,000 ICE detainees:

Now: 14
End of year: 19

Four states now account for the majority of ICE’s detention space: Texas, Louisiana, California and Georgia. That will continue, with new facilities in Texas alone expected to double the state’s capacity to an incredible 38,000 beds by year-end.

ICE documents reveal plan to double immigrant detention space this year Internal documents reveal ICE’s plans to double immigrant detention to more than 100,000 beds, including new detention centers for families.

ICE is sprinting to 100k immigrant detention beds this year, and we got the internal road map. It includes:

✅ More large-scale facilities
✅ More soft-sided tent cities
✅ Record number of family detention beds

Details in story @washingtonpost.com
wapo.st/45hE9fq

🧵 Threading highlights ->

ICE documents reveal plan to double immigrant detention space this year Internal documents reveal ICE’s plans to double immigrant detention to more than 100,000 beds, including new detention centers for families.

We got ICE documents revealing their initial plans to expand detention centers across the US. From @douglasmac.bsky.social, N Kirkpatrick & the data team's Lydia Sidhom: www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

The former private prison exec behind ICE’s immigrant detention surge David Venturella, a veteran of private prison firm Geo Group, joined the Trump administration to help oversee an expansion of the immigrant detention system that’s benefiting his former employer.

My latest on ICE’s business ties:

One of the key figures overseeing ICE’s unprecedented detention surge worked the last 12 years as an executive and consultant for private prison firm Geo Group and got an ethics waiver to work on Geo matters.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

ICE moves to shackle some 180,000 immigrants with GPS ankle monitors A June 9 memo directed ICE field officers to significantly expand the number of immigrants under round-the-clock surveillance.

The more I dig into the unfolding immigration crackdown at ICE, the more I find evidence of a business motive at play. My latest story details a new policy to sharply expand the number of immigrants on GPS ankle monitors -- and make $$$ for a Florida private prison conglomerate. wapo.st/3TY4bOf

YouTube video by Action News Jax (CBS47 & FOX30) Wrong Guy: Florida suspect misidentified by AI facial recognition technology, arrested

Florida man arrested for child predation based on a bad facial recognition match: "This is f***ing nuts"

As has been the case in other wrongful arrests, police showed facial recognition search results to eyewitnesses.

This is a terrible practice, should be banned.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=He8-...

Congress allocated $45 billion to spend locking up immigrants over the next four years — more than the government spent on ICE detention during the Obama, Biden and first Trump administrations combined. Story: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Congress allocated $45 billion to spend locking up immigrants over the next four years — more than the government spent on ICE detention during the Obama, Biden and first Trump administrations combined. Story: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Asked about the rationale for this move, a city council member said "mass murders and shootings are at an all-time high."

In fact, there were 310 fatal and nonfatal shootings in New Orleans last year — by far the LOWEST number in the 14 years the city council has published these statistics.

New Orleans pushes to legalize police use of ‘facial surveillance’ The city would become first in the United States to formally allow facial recognition as a tool for surveilling residents in real time.

My reporting showed New Orleans police were likely violating a local ordinance by running a live facial recognition surveillance program. The city's response: Legalize this technology.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Trump’s border czar earned consulting fees from immigrant detention firm Tom Homan, a top ICE official, earned an undisclosed amount from a division of the GEO Group, one of two companies that operates the majority of the nation’s immigrant detention facilities.

Border czar Tom Homan, captain of the "zero tolerance" policy that split migrant parents from their kids, was paid money by the private-prison company that profits off detaining immigrants. Drain the swamp www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... @douglasmac.bsky.social @aaronschaffer.com

Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras Following records requests from The Post, officials paused the first known, widespread live facial recognition program used by police in the United States.

One of the hard lines on facial recognition technology in the U.S. has been using it to do live searches on real-time cameras. The Washington Post reports that's been happening in New Orleans, however, by a police-adjacent nonprofit called PROJECT NOLA. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras Following records requests from The Post, officials paused the first known, widespread live facial recognition program used by police in the United States.

New Orleans police used secret network of 200 facial recognition cameras to scan people on public streets and ping nearby cops. The "technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about" www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... @douglasmac.bsky.social @aaronschaffer.com

Immigrants forced to sleep on floors at overwhelmed ICE detention centers Some immigrant detention centers across the country are over capacity. The administration has asked for emergency contracts to add more facilities.

Immigrants are being forced to sleep on floors at overwhelmed ICE detention centers: “You’re stripped from your humanity" www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... @douglasmac.bsky.social

Arrested by AI: Police ignore standards after facial recognition matches Confident in unproven facial recognition technology, sometimes investigators skip steps; at least eight Americans have been wrongfully arrested.

Christopher Gatlin spent 16 months in jail after being charged with assault in St. Louis. Another incident of police relying too heavily on facial recognition tech: www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...