In the scorching expanse of the West Texas desert, a cluster of enormous white tents has risen almost overnight, signaling the arrival of a new chapter in America’s immigration enforcement. The $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what is set to become the country’s largest migrant detention facility at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, has drawn intense scrutiny—not only for its scale, but for the shadowy circumstances of its award.
On July 18, 2025, the Trump administration handed the monumental project to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small Virginia-based company with no public record of running correctional facilities and no previous federal contract larger than $16 million. According to the Associated Press, the firm lacks a functioning website and is registered to a modest suburban home in Virginia owned by Kenneth A. Wagner, a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer who serves as its president and CEO. No one answered the door when reporters visited, and Wagner has not responded to repeated calls or emails.
The Pentagon, for its part, has refused to release the contract or explain why Acquisition Logistics was selected over a dozen other bidders, some with far more experience in running large-scale detention centers. As construction crews worked at breakneck speed, the Army cited ongoing litigation as its reason for withholding details. At least one competitor, Texas-based Gemini Tech Services, has filed a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), alleging that Acquisition Logistics lacks the experience, staffing, and resources for such a massive undertaking.
Satellite imagery from August 7, 2025, reviewed by the Associated Press, reveals three colossal tents—each about 810 feet long—surrounded by a half-dozen smaller buildings on a 60-acre site dubbed Camp East Montana. The camp sits in the sand and scrub of the Chihuahuan Desert, where summer temperatures routinely top 100 degrees Fahrenheit and heat-related deaths are common. The location, just outside El Paso and near the U.S.-Mexico border, is adjacent to the El Paso International Airport—a major hub for deportation flights.
When completed, the Fort Bliss facility is expected to house up to 5,000 migrants awaiting deportation, making it the largest such camp in the nation. The initial phase, financed by a $232 million Defense Department allocation, will provide the first 1,000 beds. Construction began within days of the contract award, though site work had started months before Congress passed a record $45 billion appropriation for immigration enforcement as part of President Trump’s sweeping tax and spending package, according to AP reporting.
The urgency and secrecy surrounding the project have raised alarm bells in Congress and among advocacy groups. Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes Fort Bliss, toured the camp and voiced her concerns: “It’s far too easy for standards to slip,” she said. “Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.”
Joshua Schnell, a lawyer specializing in federal contracting law, echoed these worries, telling AP, “The lack of transparency about this contract leads to legitimate questions about why the Army would award such a large contract to a company without a website or any other publicly available information demonstrating its ability to perform such a complicated project.”
The contract’s June 9 solicitation notice spelled out that the selected company would be responsible for not only building but also operating the center—including security and medical care. A strict secrecy clause requires the contractor to refer all inquiries from Congress or the media to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which oversees the facility under the Department of Homeland Security. For weeks, ICE declined to answer questions about the camp, only issuing a statement after the story broke: “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. She added that the Fort Bliss facility “will offer everything a traditional ICE detention facility offers, including access to legal representation and a law library, access to visitation, recreational space, medical treatment space and nutritionally balanced meals.”
Yet advocates and historians warn of troubling echoes from the past. Setareh Ghandehari of Detention Watch drew parallels to World War II, when Japanese Americans were incarcerated at Army camps—including Fort Bliss itself. “Conditions at all detention facilities are inherently awful,” she said. “But when there’s less access and oversight, it creates the potential for even more abuse.” The new camp has also drawn comparisons to “Alligator Alcatraz,” a $245 million tent complex built in Florida’s Everglades to house ICE detainees. That facility became notorious for unsanitary conditions and lawsuits before a federal judge ordered its closure.
The vast majority of ICE’s roughly 57,000 detainees are currently housed in private prisons operated by companies like Florida’s Geo Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic. With these facilities nearing capacity, ICE has begun exploring temporary options at military bases in California, New York, and Utah. At Fort Bliss, the Army’s contract was open only to small businesses classified as veteran- and Hispanic-owned disadvantaged firms, giving Acquisition Logistics a leg up. Ironically, while the Trump administration has sought to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, federal contracting rules still mandate such set-asides.
Acquisition Logistics’ prior federal work has included repairing small boats for the Air Force, providing IT support to the Defense Department, and building temporary offices to aid with immigration enforcement—none of which compare to running a 5,000-bed detention center. The company’s sudden leap into the big leagues has fueled speculation that it might be working with a larger, more experienced subcontractor behind the scenes. During a recent earnings call, Geo Group CEO George Zoley said his company had teamed up with an established Pentagon contractor, though he didn’t name the partner. Geo Group did not respond to requests for clarification, and CoreCivic said it was not working with either Acquisition Logistics or Gemini.
The protest filed by Gemini Tech Services with the GAO alleges that Acquisition Logistics simply cannot handle the scale of the project. The GAO’s ruling—whether to sustain, dismiss, or require corrective action—is expected no earlier than November 2025. A separate legal appeal is pending in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has signaled that more such camps could follow at other military bases, as the administration presses forward with its pledge to arrest and deport as many as 10 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. The reliance on military facilities for immigration detention, experts say, marks a significant shift in federal policy—one that places unprecedented responsibility in the hands of the armed forces and, in this case, a little-known private contractor.
As the sun beats down on the freshly erected tents of Camp East Montana, questions about transparency, oversight, and accountability continue to swirl. For now, the fate of thousands of migrants—and the integrity of a $1.2 billion government contract—hangs in the balance, awaiting answers that remain elusive.
