Time Magazine reported Friday that it has obtained exclusive documents which shows that the U.S. Navy is planning to construct detention centers to house tens of thousands of immigrants in Alabama, Arizona and California, including the former Naval Weapons Station in Concord, about 30 miles from San Francisco.
According to the document, about 47,000 people will be housed in a camp at the former Naval Weapons Station. Another 47,000 will be housed at Camp Pendleton on the Southern California Coast.
"It would be inappropriate to discuss internal deliberative planning documents,” Capt. Gregory Hicks, Chief Navy Spokesman told NBC Bay Area.
"Stop this craziness," Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who represents California's 11th Congressional District, said in a Facebook Live. "Now is the time to stop this and have a discussion on how to fix our immigration policy."
DeSaulnier, a former mayor of Concord, said that there was no way 47,000 people could fit inside the facility. "This is nothing short of madness," he said.
Dozens of people angered by President Donald Trump's zero tolerance policy that has separated thousandgs of migrant parents and children at the border protested outside the ICE detention facility in Richmond Friday afternoon.
"It's heartbreaking seeing all the families cry," protester Edward Trujano said.
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The internal document, which has been drafted for the Navy Secretary’s approval, shows what kind of role the military plans to play in President Trump’s immigration crackdown, Time reported.
According to the document, the Navy would spend about $233 million to construct and operate a facility for 25,000 people for a six-month time period. The proposal suggests these tent cities be built to last between six months and one year.”
The memo says that “temporary and austere” tent cities will be built to house 25,000 migrants at abandoned airfields outside the Florida panhandle near Mobile, Alabama, at Navy Outlying Field Wolf in Orange Beach, Alabama, and nearby Navy Outlying Field Silverhill.
The Pentagon on Thursday said it will make space available on military bases for as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children detained after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The request for temporary shelter — amid a growing political battle over detained migrants — was made by the Department of Health and Human Services and accepted by the Defense Department, said the spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis.
A Pentagon memo to members of Congress, obtained by The Associated Press, said it has been asked to have the facilities available as early as July, through the end of the year. It said HHS personnel or contractors for HHS "will provide all care for the children," including supervision, meals, clothing, medical services, transportation and other daily needs.
Trump's order to stop separating migrant children from their parents spread confusion and uncertainty along the border, as officials worked to come up with an overall plan to reunite families while sending conflicting signals about the state of the administration's "zero tolerance" policy.
Parents who remained locked up struggled to get in touch with children being held in many cases hundreds of miles away. Some said they didn't even know where their children were. Others said they had been deported without them.
A senior Trump administration official said that about 500 of the more than 2,300 children taken from their families at the border in recent weeks have been reunited since May.
It's not clear which bases will be used to house the children. HHS has assessed facilities on four military bases, but the Pentagon said it has not been told which, if any, of the four will be used. The Pentagon said it will have no role in operating the temporary shelters, which would be controlled by HHS.
