Navy draws up plans for ‘austere’ tent cities for 120,000 immigrants arrested at the border including giant city of 47,000 at California’s Camp Pendleton
Navy plans call for massive tent cities to accommodate immigrants
President Trump reversed his family separation policy this week
Parents now are to be held with their children when possible
Current court order limits incarceration of minors to 20 days
Military would build cities of 25,000 each in Alabama
Alabama is home to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who pushed ‘zero tolerance’
Migrants also could be housed near Yuma, Ariz.
$233 million to build and run a 25,000 person facility for six-months
By GEOFF EARLE
DAILYMAIL.COM
22 June 2018
The Navy is responding to President Trump’s order to prepare ‘for the housing and care of alien families’ – and has generated a plan for a series of massive tent cities including one that could hold 47,000 immigrants.
The Navy has developed a plan to build and operate ‘temporary and austere’ tent cities, including several in Alabama that would hold 25,000 people each.
The plans anticipate a request by the Department of Homeland Security, which has been implementing the Trump Administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy at the border.
Under Trump’s executive order that he signed this week amid an outcry over separation of families, parents will no longer be kept apart from their children when they cross the border illegally.
However the policy poses a new logistical challenge, as the administration now prepares to house families together.
The Navy plan, obtained by Time Magazine, calls for tent cities of 25,000 at abandoned airfields near Mobile, Alabama, in Orange Beach, Alabama, and another in Silverhill.
A mega tent city is being proposed at Camp Pendleton, a massive Marine training facility in southern California. It could hold 47,000. The memo proposes a camp of similar size at a former Naval Weapons station in Concord, near San Francisco, according to the report.
A Marine Corps Air Station near Yuma, Arizona is another proposed cite.
The Department of Health and Human Services has also asked the Pentagon to prepare to house 20,000 unaccompanied minors at military bases.
Although bases have been visited by Health and Human Services personnel for possible housing, ‘It doesn’t mean any or all children would be housed there,’ said Army Lt. Col. Jaime Davis in a statement. He said it was part of ‘prudent planning.’
The executive order by the president called on the Defense Secretary to ‘take all legally available measures to provide to the [Homeland] Secretary, upon request, any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien families, and shall construct such facilities if necessary and consistent with law. The Secretary, to the extent permitted by law, shall be responsible for reimbursement for the use of these facilities.’
The Navy is estimating the costs for a single 25,000 person facility are estimated at $233 million.
‘It would be inappropriate to discuss internal deliberative planning documents,’ said Navy spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks.
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