Former Japanese American WWII camp is now the country’s largest immigration detention center

The Trump administration has opened the country’s largest immigration detention center at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, a former military base that served as a temporary incarceration camp for Japanese American civilians during World War II.

About the site: The $1.2 billion complex, also known as “Camp East Montana,” sits on the desert landscape near ICE’s regional headquarters. Currently housing 1,000 male detainees, the center will expand by 250-person increments until reaching its 5,000-person capacity by 2027, becoming the largest federal detention facility in American history.

The base has a troubling memory from the 1940s, when it operated detention compounds surrounded by double barbed wire. Among those held were at least 113 first-generation Japanese Americans, part of the broader wartime incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans nationwide.

What critics are saying: Advocates and community organizations are raising concerns about repeating past mistakes. The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) immediately condemned the facility’s opening. “The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration today echoes the same logic that led to the forced removal and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry,” it said. “It is inconceivable that the U.S. is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also slammed the site, calling it “cruel” and “a reminder of a shameful detention legacy.” “Thousands of people, including our neighbors and loved ones, will be torn from their communities while this administration enlists the military to rubberstamp its abusive agenda,” said Sarah Mehta, deputy director of government affairs at the ACLU’s Equality division.

What the administration is saying: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the wartime comparisons as “deranged and lazy,” reiterating that ICE is targeting “the worst of the worst” such as “murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles and rapists.” However, data shows that ICE has been increasingly arresting non-criminals, while agency figures show 45% of about 59,000 people detained in mid-August had no criminal records or pending charges.

Amid his immigration crackdown, President Donald Trump has invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act — the same law former President Franklin D. Roosevelt used to justify Japanese American incarceration — though courts have blocked some of his removal efforts.