ICE Replaces Contractor at Largest Immigration Detention Camp

Federal immigration officials have moved to replace the contractor running Camp East Montana, the nation’s largest immigration detention facility, after months of documented reports describing dangerous and inhumane conditions at the sprawling tent complex on Fort Bliss in El Paso.

ICE announced Friday that it is terminating Acquisition Logistics, LLC, the firm that built and has operated the camp since its rushed opening last year, and replacing it with Amentum Services, Inc. The agency cited Amentum’s deeper experience and institutional track record as reasons for the switch.

The conditions that prompted the change are serious. Detainees at the six-tent encampment, which holds an average of nearly 3,000 people, have described struggles to obtain medication, significant weight loss due to inadequate food, and fear of guards who reportedly use force. In its first five months of operation, the camp generated at least 130 calls to 911, including two deaths, several suicide attempts, and a stream of medical emergencies. A measles outbreak also swept through the facility, amplifying calls from several Democratic members of Congress to shut it down entirely.

The contractor at the center of those failures was a firm with no business running an operation of this scale. Acquisition Logistics had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million before landing a deal worth up to $1.3 billion to build and manage Camp East Montana. The company lacked even a functioning website at the time of the award. That contract was set to run through September 2027, and the government has already committed nearly $600 million toward it.

ICE has not publicly explained what specifically triggered the termination. Acquisition Logistics president and CEO Ken Wagner did not return requests for comment.

Amentum, the incoming contractor, has worked at Camp East Montana as a subcontractor and comes with a significantly longer resume. The company is known primarily for its work with the military and intelligence agencies, and ICE described it as uniquely positioned to stabilize operations. An unnamed agency spokesperson said Amentum’s “size, maturity and pedigree make them the right partner at the right time,” and added that the transition will focus on improving medical care, tightening intake procedures, and establishing clearer accountability measures.

Those are the right priorities, but the contractor swap alone does not resolve the deeper questions this situation raises. How did Acquisition Logistics secure a billion-dollar federal contract with no relevant experience? Who evaluated that award, and what due diligence was performed before nearly three thousand people were placed under the company’s care? ICE completed an inspection of Camp East Montana recently, but the findings have not been released publicly.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, the El Paso Democrat whose congressional district includes the facility, said Friday she was relieved that Acquisition Logistics had been removed. But she stopped well short of treating the contractor swap as a resolution. Escobar has reiterated her calls for the facility itself to be shut down and for the contractors involved to face formal investigation.

That demand deserves to be taken seriously. The evidence of malnutrition, medical neglect, and emotional distress at Camp East Montana did not emerge from a single bad week. It accumulated over months while thousands of people lived in conditions that generated 130 emergency calls and multiple deaths. A contractor change is an administrative action. Accountability for how this situation developed in the first place is a different matter entirely.

For Dallas-area readers, this story connects to something closer to home than it might appear. North Texas is home to several ICE detention facilities and a federal contracting ecosystem that includes firms seeking exactly these kinds of large government awards. How federal detention contracts get awarded, monitored, and enforced is a policy question with real human consequences.

What happened at Camp East Montana is a failure of oversight as much as a failure of management. Replacing the contractor is a necessary first step. Whether anyone answers for how it got this bad is the question that still needs an answer.