Washington, DC – The Department of Defense announced Wednesday that it will build six temporary camps in the border areas with Mexico in the states of Texas and Arizona to house a total of 7,500 undocumented immigrants.
The Pentagon will build the camps in support and at the request of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in charge of border security and immigration in the country.
It will be precisely the DHS that will be in charge of managing the camps, according to the Pentagon in a statement: “Military personnel will not operate the facilities and will only erect the stores.” Operating the facilities is the responsibility of DHS.
In addition to building them, the Pentagon will also cede the tents for the camps, which will house 7,500 undocumented adults already processed by the Border Patrol and handed over to immigration authorities.
“This support is provided to help DHS address the current humanitarian and security crisis on our southern border,” the Pentagon explained.
The camps will be located in Tornillo, Donna, Laredo, and Del Rio (Texas) and in Tucson and Yuma (Arizona), locations chosen by DHS.
The organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) already denounced in early May the creation of detention centers with tents to house undocumented immigrants who cross the southern border with Mexico.
HRW said it had satellite images taken on April 25 that show the “rapid” creation of these camps in positions managed by the Border Patrol in El Paso and Donna (both in Texas).
The southern border of the United States is experiencing an unprecedented wave of immigration in the last decade that has led border authorities to recognize that they are overflowing.
In April, the number of migrants detained after crossing the border exceeded 100,000, mostly Central American families, mainly Guatemalan, seeking asylum in the United States. upon arrival. (EFE)
