Republicans Have Turned the Texas Capitol Into a Prison (With Bathroom Escorts). From The Barbed Wire

Howdy, Texas. I’m Brian Gaar, senior editor of The Barbed Wire. Democracy here is circling the drain, cops are escorting lawmakers to the bathroom, and Texas Republicans won’t be satisfied until the Capitol comes with ankle monitors and a warden.

Before we get into the headlines this week, our own Managing Editor Cara Kelly wrote about how messed up the journalism industry is — and how we’d like you to help us save democracy. Our first birthday is on Aug. 26, and we’ll be featuring more reflections from the team over the next several weeks. Want to revisit all of our best content from the past 12 months? Find it here.

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Meanwhile, in Texas, it’s been an even more dystopian week than normal (which is really saying something), let’s get to it:

First up: The Texas Capitol is now a minimum-security prison. Forget ballots, Democrats can barely pee without a police escort. After returning from their walkout over racist gerrymandering, Democrats were greeted by law enforcement minders and forced to sign literal “permission slips” agreeing to 24/7 surveillance. Rep. Nicole Collier wasn’t having it — she refused to sign away her dignity, camped overnight on the House floor, and sparked a wave of support. 

When Collier staged her lock-in, four women supporters spontaneously showed up with dozens of others, and, when threatened by law enforcement, spent the night in jail. State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt jumped in to help those ladies, who’re now banned from the Capitol for a full year. 

Texas Republicans may be trying to rig the map, but women on the front lines of the fight for fair representation made it clear: They’re not going anywhere.

Meanwhile in El Paso, Texas added a brand-new entry to its “things we’ll regret in history books” list. Camp East Montana, the largest immigrant detention facility in U.S. history, just opened on the very site where Japanese Americans and other civilians were imprisoned during World War II. State capacity for ICE detention is set to more than double, even though the majority of people locked up have no criminal record. A shameful past, now recycled for profit.

A ‘Shameful’ Legacy: Texas Has Officially Opened an ICE Detention Facility at Site of WWII Internment Camp

Camp East Montana is now the largest immigrant detention facility in U.S. history, but it’s just one of 19 sites that will add a total of 37,649 new beds for ICE detainment — a 105% increase in the state’s capacity.

By Leslie Rangel

In El Paso on Sunday, the Trump Administration opened the doors to Camp East Montana, the largest ICE detention facility in the country’s history. It reportedly cost $1.2 billion under a U.S. Defense Department contract.

The new facility is at Fort Bliss, one of five sites where Texas held detainees of Japanese descent, as well as immigrants from Germany and Italy — including American-born civilians — during World War II, according to the National Parks Service and The El Paso Times.

Camp East Montana is just one of multiple sites that will be opening or expanding in the coming months, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper reported that Texas alone will house 37,649 new beds this year, which marks a 105% increase in the state’s capacity. 

To be clear, as of June, 65% of people taken by ICE had no convictions of any kind, according to the CATO Institute, a nonpartisan and independent public policy research organization. 

Immigration attorneys say most of these facilities are filled with people who have no criminal records at all. Local leaders in El Paso are worried about the lack of transparency in the facility. At least one worker, 38-year-old Hector Gonzalez, died during its construction. Gonzalez’s death is currently under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, according to NBC News.

Local officials have also raised concerns about detainees’ access to air conditioning, running water, showers, and hot meals. Per NBC News, court settlements require that facilities used by ICE meet certain standards, including many of those provisions. 

Deon Lewis, a 43-year-old man from Trinidad, made headlines from a detention center in Houston last week when he begged to be deported, according to The Houston Chronicle. Lewis told the newspaper that federal officials have refused to provide his medication for sickle cell disease, for which he’s experienced excruciating pain. Lewis, the newspaper reported, has been in the United States as a legal permanent resident or green card holder since 1993. 

While Camp East Montana currently holds about 1,000 beds, according to KTSM News, ICE has said the facility will accommodate 5,000 beds by 2027, according to The Post. 

At least 18 other new or expanded Texas facilities are part of this plan, include Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, with the capacity for 3,700 people; Brownsville Family Detention, with the capacity for 3,500 people; Big Spring Complex, with the capacity for 2,300; and more than a dozen additional sites, The Post reported.

“President Trump’s use of Fort Bliss for the nation’s largest immigrant detention site is cruel and a reminder of a shameful detention legacy,” said Sarah Mehta, deputy director of government affairs, Equality Division at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement. “Thousands of people, including our neighbors and loved ones, will be torn from their communities while this administration enlists the military to rubberstamp its abusive agenda.”

During Trump’s first term in 2016 and in 2021, when the Biden administration also housed children who came across the border without guardians at Fort Bliss, whistleblowers decried the conditions inside — and alleged the facility was mismanaged, NBC News reported. A federal watchdog report later detailed the distress experienced by children in the facility.

Civil rights organizations are deeply concerned about what these ever-expanding facilities will mean for the basic human rights of the people who are detained, said Savannah Kumar, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. 

“From the internment of Japanese Americans to the family separation crisis under (Trump’s) first administration,” she said, “people detained there will almost certainly have their basic rights violated while caged in tents under the brutal West Texas sun, with extreme heat that puts their lives at risk. This is not just dangerous — it’s cruel.”

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