Washington.-The Department of Defense announced on Wednesday that it will erect six temporary camps in the border areas with Mexico from 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 the DHS that will handle the camps, the Pentagon said in a statement: “Military personnel won’t operate the facilities and just erect the stores. Operating the facility is the responsibility of DHS. ” In addition to building them, the Pentagon will also cede tents for the camps, which will house 7,500 undocumented adults already indicted by the Border Patrol and handed over to the 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), sites chosen by the DHS.
The Organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has already denounced in early May the creation of tent detention centers to accommodate undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border with Mexico.
HRW claimed to have satellite images taken on April 25 that show the “quick” creation of those camps in positions run by the Border Patrol at El Paso and Donna (both in Texas).
The southern border of the United States is experiencing an unprecedented wave of migration in the last decade that has led the 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, especially Guatemalans, who seek asylum in the U.S. on arrival.
