Ft. Bliss Hangar Covertly Used as Illegal Alien Processing Center

Update with Pentagon comment 6/16/14

The Obama administration has not identified Ft. Bliss in Texas as an illegal immigrant processing/holding location yet busloads have arrived at the El Paso military base in the last few days, a high-level inside source tells Judicial Watch.

A hangar on the Biggs Army Airfield is quietly being used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to process, house and transition the influx of illegal immigrant minors that have arrived from Central America in the last few weeks, according to the source. Three large buses recently pulled into the hangar then unloaded passengers out of sight as if to hide what’s going on, JW’s source reveals.

The official version from the government is to pretend nothing is going on. The media relations department at Ft. Bliss referred Judicial Watch to Army Public Affairs in Washington D.C. Lieutenant Colonel Alayne P. Conway at Army Public Affairs then referred JW to Ken Wolf, a deputy director at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington D.C. He never bothered getting back to us.

The Obama administration has identified three military installations—Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Ventura County Naval Base in southern California and Ft. Still Army Base in Oklahoma—as the only ones being used to process the barrage of illegal alien youths that have crossed into the U.S. through Mexico recently. A Nogales Transition Center in Arizona is also housing about 1,000 sexually active teenagers (JW reported on that earlier this week) and the McAllen Customs and Border Patrol facility in Texas is also holding about the same number.

No mention anywhere about Ft. Bliss, which may lead some to wonder if there are other facilities that are being concealed to downplay the crisis from the American public. The Obama administration blames the sudden migration of Central American youths on the region’s persistent violence and the president himself has determined that it’s a humanitarian crisis that’s never the less under control. Earlier this week a veteran Border Patrol agent told JW that rumors of amnesty are responsible for the unforeseen bombardment. When agents ask the illegal border crossers what drove them, “we are hearing a lot of amnistía (amnesty),” said Art Del Cueto, the Tucson Border Patrol Union president.

Media outlets in Central America are reinforcing this storyline. Honduras’s largest newspaper reports this week that the minors will spend three to four months in federal camps until they can be turned over to family in the U.S. Besides receiving food and shelter, the Honduran newspaper article says, kids will receive English classes, participate in sports and other programs while their relatives are tracked down in the U.S. El Salvador’s largest newspaper reported just a few days ago that DHS officials confirmed that the amnesty offered to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors under DACA could be extended two more years. The article quotes DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson saying that everyone agrees that a minor who crossed the border illegally in search of a parent or a better life is not breaking our laws.

This has caused the crisis to spiral so out of control that U.S. Border Patrol agents are being recruited to serve as babysitters for the flood of illegal immigrant minors that have entered the country recently through the Rio Grande region of Texas, according to an internal document obtained by Judicial Watch. Agents with “child care or juvenile teaching and/or counseling” experience are being called upon to work extra shifts at the various shelters that are housing the illegal alien minors. Agents will be “responsible for feeding, monitoring, interacting and providing security” for the youths until they are placed elsewhere. Keep in mind this is the front-line DHS agency responsible for preventing terrorists and weapons of mass destruction from entering the United States.

Update: Three days after this story got published, a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Crosson, contacted Judicial Watch to finally offer an official comment from the government. He said it’s “completely false” that Ft. Bliss is being used to process or house the “UACs,” (Unaccompanied Alien Children) crossing illegally into the U.S. JW stands by its story.