“The United States will not be a migrant camp. And it will not be a refugee-holding facility – it won’t be.”
Trump made this statement on Monday. But it’s becoming rapidly apparent that the US government is, in fact, planning to build a series of massive tent cities that could potentially house thousands of migrants for months at a time. A Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday that the US is planning to shelter as many as 20,000 migrant children on four American military bases, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, just this afternoon, Time Magazine reported that the US Navy is planning to build several massive tent cities to house thousands of immigrants in a few different states. Time, which obtained a Navy memo outlining the plan to build “temporary and austere” tent cities, said the document was sent to the Navy Secretary for his approval. The cities will house roughly 25,000 migrants in abandoned airfields just out side the Florida Panhandle near Mobile, Alabama, at Navy Outlying Field Wolf in Orange Beach, Alabama, and nearby Navy Outlying Field Silverhill.
The U.S. Navy is preparing plans to construct sprawling detention centers for tens of thousands of immigrants on remote bases in California, Alabama and Arizona, escalating the military’s task in implementing President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy for people caught crossing the Southern border, according to a copy of a draft memo obtained by TIME.
The internal document, drafted for the Navy Secretary’s approval, signals how the military is anticipating its role in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The planning document indicates a potential growing military responsibility in an administration caught flat-footed in having to house waves of migrants awaiting civilian criminal proceedings.
There are also plans for a camp that will hold as many as 47,000 people at former Naval Weapons Station Concord, near San Francisco. And another facility that could house 47,000 near Camp Pendleton, the largest training facility for US Marines situated along the SoCal coastline. The cities are said to be built to last between six months and a year, while the planning document estimates that the Navy would spend about $233 million to build the facility. Officials proposed a 60-day timeline to build the first temporary facility, which will house 5,000 adults. The military believes it could then add room for 10,000 more people every month.
Capt. Greg Hicks, Navy’s chief spokesman, declined to provide details on the matter. “It would be inappropriate to discuss internal deliberative planning documents,” he told TIME.
While this report will further incense liberals, who have hurled “concentration camp” comparisons at the Trump administration, we’d first like to remind readers that the majority of Americans (and swing voters, for that matter) support President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies.
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