The seal of the Department of Defense at the Pentagon.
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The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to use military bases in New Jersey and Indiana to detain immigrants who entered the country illegally, as well as to increase the number of immigrants detained at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to correspondence between DHS and the Pentagon obtained by NPR.
According to the letter, dated July 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved the moves, which were requested by DHS the previous month.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of DHS, had sought immediate access to Camp Atterbury, a National Guard base in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a base in New Jersey, from the Defense Department.
ICE is also seeking to detain more immigrants without legal status atGuantanamo Bay prior to their final removal from the United States.
“DoD approves this support through September 30, 2025, subject to ICE maintaining a 24/7 oversight presence at each site to maintain custody and provide overall supervision of each site,” stated the letter from Executive Secretary Anthony Fuscellaro to DHS Acting Executive Secretary Andrew Whitaker. ICE staff and contractors will be responsible for all care and handling of the migrants, including meals, medical screening, transportation and medical services, according to the correspondence obtained by NPR.
Neither DHS nor the Defense Department have yet responded to questions about the letter.
On his first day in office, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, enabling DHS to gain access to DoD’s military resources. During congressional testimony, Todd Lyons, ICE’s acting director, told lawmakers he did not expect DHS to repay the Pentagon for their costs.
The approval letter notes that DHS will pay DoD for any costs associated with migrant detention at McGuire Field, the Air Force base in New Jersey.
The request for the use of additional military bases, and expansion at Guantanamo, comes as the Trump administration has pushed to arrest and detain more people in the country without legal status. DHS has nearly 57,000 people in immigration detention, though it only has about 41,000 beds. The department has sought out contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, local jurisdictions, and the use of military bases to detain migrants.
By June, Guantanamo was holding about 500 migrants, though until now the base could only accommodate about 200.
In the letter to lawmakers obtained by NPR, Hegseth said that the use of the bases in Indiana and New Jersey for immigration detention “will not negatively affect military training, operations, readiness, or other military requirements, including National Guard and Reserve readiness.”
Camp Atterbury in Indiana will assist with removal operations out of the Chicago area; McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey will support Newark. Guantanamo Bay is designated to help with detentions and removals from Miami.
The plan laid out by DHS calls for space for up to 1,000 people at the Indiana and New Jersey bases and to approximately double the capacity at Guantanamo to 400 people.
DoD rejected a request from DHS for air transportation assistance until it got more details.
In May, DHS asked for 20,000 National Guard members to assist ICE in its operations ranging from “night raids” and “rural interdictions” to guard duty at detention facilities. The Pentagon has already approved some 700 Guard members to assist in Florida, Louisiana and Texas.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that hundreds more Guard troops are expected to be called up to assist operations in Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
The Democratic congressional delegation in a statement condemned the terms of the use of the New Jersey base.
“This is an inappropriate use of our national defense system and military resources,” they said in the statement. “Using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants jeopardizes military preparedness and paves the way for ICE immigration raids in every New Jersey community. We have the greatest military in the world and using it as a domestic political tool is unacceptable and shameful.”
In addition to using the military, the Trump administration is expected to be able to scale up its detention capacity due to an influx of funding from Congress. The recent tax and spending bill set aside $45 billion for immigration detention centers, and $30 billion for more ICE personnel, transportation costs and to maintain existing ICE facilities.
