Custom Border Protection sets up tent city outside El Paso to shelter incoming migrants

U.S. Customs and Border Protection erected a large soft-sided tent facility to operate as a processing center in El Paso to provide some relief to the overcrowded facilities in the city. 

The tent will increase the city’s migrant processing capacity by 1,000, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Landon Hutchens. 

“The facility will be used by the U.S. Border Patrol El Paso Sector to provide additional migrant processing capabilities, with a capacity to hold approximately 1,000 migrants while they are processed in accordance with U.S. immigration law,” Hutchens said in a statement.

The facility, which is expected to start operating sometime in January, covers an area the size of several football fields in a desert area about 20 miles from downtown El Paso. 

The Department of Homeland Security announced an additional nine soft-sided facilities to boost the CBP’s migrant processing capacity amid an unprecedented influx of migrants. 

“This is part of the agency’s response efforts regarding increased migrant encounters in the El Paso area, along with surging additional personnel and providing funding to local partners,” Hutchens added.

“The addition of temporary processing facilities such as this one increases CBP’s capacity to safely take noncitizens into custody and place them into immigration proceedings.”

In December, El Paso declared a state of emergency after it received thousands of migrants seeking asylum, overwhelming local shelters and leaving thousands sleeping on the streets in freezing temperatures. 

The city is currently using hotels, church parishes, and convention centers to house the incoming migrants, which number around 2,400 a day, according to city data.