Immigration Tent Courts At The Border Have Cost Taxpayers Nearly $70 Million During The Pandemic. But There Are No Hearings.

No immigration hearings have been taking place at the large prefabricated border facilities built in 2019 to conduct immigration hearings. Yet the federal government has spent nearly $70 million during the pandemic to maintain these structures also known as “tent courts” in Brownsville and Laredo, Texas.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, the government has spent more than $67 million under a federal contract with Deployed Resources, the New York-based contractor that built these facilities in 2019 and has provided tents, office containers, urinals and sinks to festivals such as Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. The $67 million expense includes a 6-month extension of the existing contract for tent courts, which was signed in July for over $40 million. So far in 2020, Deployed Resources has received $144 million in government contracts, which include maintaining these two tent structures as well as a detention facility in Donna, Texas, a holding facility in Yuma, Arizona, and providing resources for hurricane relief in Louisiana.  

In September 2019, the administration moved its hearings for migrants crossing the southern border to prefabricated facilities instead of regular U.S. courts. Six months later in March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited concerns over the Covid-19 pandemic and halted immigration hearings for 30 days in these courts, which were built under the administration’s Migrant Protection Program (or what activists refer to as the “Remain in Mexico” policy). In May, the order was extended indefinitely. “Upon determining that the further introduction of COVID-19 into the United States is no longer a serious danger to the public health necessitating the continuation of this Order, I will publish a notice in the Federal Register terminating this Order and its Extensions,” CDC director Robert Redfield said in a statement. 

The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security proposed a rule on July 9, however, which could bar refugees from seeking asylum and other humanitarian protections in the U.S. claiming they put the  public health at risk during pandemics. “This proposed rule, like the March 20 CDC order, is xenophobia masquerading as a public health measure, and both must be rescinded,” 170 public health experts argued in a letter, criticizing the proposed rule. “The United States can and must both safeguard public health during emergencies and uphold U.S. laws and treaties protecting the lives of those seeking safety and freedom here.”

Eight days after the proposed rule, DHS extended its contract to maintain tent courts for another 6 months, which cost more than $40 million, and announced a plan with the DOJ to resume MPP hearings but have yet to do so. When asked what these facilities are currently used for, Customs and Border Patrol referred all questions to the DHS. “The Department of Homeland Security continues to carry out its essential mission in conjunction with its interagency partners,” a DHS official told Forbes in an email. Deployed Resources did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment.

In January 2019, the federal government announced it would require migrants who seek asylum at the U.S. border be held only briefly at the border before being sent back to Mexico unless they are not Mexican nationals, pregnant or with disabilities (although there have been reports about such groups being sent back as well). In September 2019, it moved these hearings to tent courts where both the judge and the federal immigration counsel appeared via videoconferencing, according to multiple people who have observed the videoconferences, which were open to the public. In order to build these courts, the government relied on a shift of $155 million in funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the Department of Homeland Security, which was announced in August 2019.  

Forbes reported in December that critics have raised concerns about the restricted access to these facilities. An ACLU report argued that the latest protocols were a way “to make it so difficult and dangerous to apply for asylum that people will simply give up and return to the persecution they fled.” Texas-based nonprofit Human Rights First says as of May 2020, there were at least 1,114 public reports of violent attacks on individuals returned to Mexico under MPP, including 265 kidnappings or attempted kidnappings of children.

Deployed Resources was founded in 2001 and has done work in 40 states and provides services in emergency response, mission support, event support as well as equipment; from laundry and gyms to kitchens and toilets. In 2018 and 2019, the company provided technical staff, water distribution, sinks, and tents at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee, which reportedly sold 80,000 tickets in 2019. It also provided portable bathrooms for Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival. In 2017, the firm supplied more than 900 urinals, toilets, and sinks for the Lollapalooza music festival in Grant Park, Illinois. With music concerts and festivals cancelled during the pandemic, Deployed Resources must be thankful for its $140 million in contracts with the U.S. government.