Military confirms it's building detention centers for thousands of migrant families

The Trump administration is turning to the military to house the migrant families it’s detaining and prosecuting at great expense and is currently under court order to reunite. The plan is for 2,000 people to be held at military facilities within 45 days and for more capacity to be added going forward.

The Defense Department said that it was asked to identify any of its facilities that could house 12,000 people, and if those spaces aren’t available it has been asked to build "semi-separate, soft-sided camp facilities" capable of housing 4,000 people each at three separate locations.

As one retired Air Force colonel said recently, the whole plan “smacks of totalitarianism,” while other observers have pointed to the likelihood of abuses. Given that the whole plan originated with the monstrously abusive act of ripping children out of their parents’ arms in order to prosecute the parents overwhelmingly for misdemeanors, while the government resists accepting legitimate asylum applications, it’s safe to say that abuse is hard-wired into the process. Hiding it away on military bases and resisting efforts by even members of Congress to conduct oversight is a sign—as if we needed one—that the Trump administration intends abuse to continue.