Trump planned tent cities since beginning

WASHINGTON — Since the earliest days of the Trump presidency, the administration has been preparing to erect tent cities to house immigrants who had come to the country illegally.

The Department of Homeland Security asked Congress for $95 million to erect tent cities in two locations in Texas to “detain all immigration violators,” according to a budget document shared with McClatchy and provided to Congress in March 2017.

The so-called “soft-sided structure facilities in Tornillo and Donna, Texas” were to house immigrants — possibly unaccompanied children or families — after the United States saw a surge in the number of immigrants crossing its southern border during the Obama administration.

But in the following weeks, the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. declined and the administration informed Congress in April 2017 that it no longer needed the money for tent cities.

The administration’s new plan to house thousands of immigrant children separated from their parents in tent cities in Texas — at Fort Bliss Army base near El Paso, Dyess Air Force base in Abilene and Goodfellow Air Force base in San Angelo — has caused a national uproar with critics quickly dubbing them “concentration camps.”

Clara Long, U.S. researcher at Human Rights Watch, said children should not be detained at all and that the focus of the administration should be on keeping families together.

HHS spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said temporary structures contain a full heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, as well as a floor, walls and doors. “Using semipermanent structures allows for increased speed and flexibility to get the shelter operational to care for children and expand as necessary,” he said.