According to an internal draft document obtained by Time magazine, the US Navy is working on plans to set up “temporary and austere” immigrant detention centers and tent cities for tens of thousands of people trying to illegally cross the US border.
The memo maps out plans to build temporary tent camps at remote military facilities in Alabama, California and Arizona. The detention camps could each house up to 47,000 individuals, while the tent cities would be designed for as many as 25,000 migrants.
Building and operating a facility for up to 25,000 immigrants for half a year has a price tag of $233 million.
The navy’s chief spokesman, Captain Greg Hicks, refused to comment on the plans, saying it would be “inappropriate to discuss internal deliberative planning documents.”
The internal document was made public three days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end separation of migrant families along the US-Mexico border.
READ MORE: Why Ending Family Separation Will Not Fix America's Immigration System
The president’s move comes amid public outrage sparked by reports that over 2,000 children were forcibly separated from their families at the border between May 5 and June 9 as part of his “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.
