Hill Air Force Base could play a role in deportations

SALT LAKE CITY — The New York Times reports that Utah’s Hill Air Force Base could play a role in recent deportations across the U.S.

The newspaper spoke with three unnamed officials with ties to the plans.

Stage one is to establish Fort Bliss, Texas as a kind of deportation hub, which will be capable of holding thousands of immigrants at once. Eventually, more sites across the country would serve the same role. This includes the Hill Air Force Base.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited Fort Bliss earlier in February.

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Utah Immigration Attorney Carlos Trujillo said these makeshift detention centers probably won’t have the same type of rights as other types of centers, but people should be able to contact family and attorneys.

“They are able to reach out to families actually quite often,” said Trujillo. “With the attorneys, usually attorneys are able to set up legal phone calls. Now, that process, it is actually quite burdensome. Sometimes you can be waiting a week or two to set up a legal phone call so that you can speak privately with your clients. Otherwise, if you speak with them through the regular lines, then those conversations can be listened to.”

Trujillo said these makeshift detention centers are legal.

“Of course, there are many other things that will need to happen to be able to hold people and to provide them with lawfully things that they are afforded, but it is legal.“

However, the process so far, according to Trujillo, is being made up as they go. 

“They really were not prepared to implement the plan of mass deportation, and now they are realizing the multiple obstacles that there [are] because the system in general in full is actually broken,” said Trujillo.

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Obstacles like not having enough beds and detaining people who aren’t even supposed to be detained. Trujillo said many of the migrants detained are being freed hours later because it is discovered that they are actually here legally or are already in a removal proceeding. 

Trujillo said even their office has had clients being asked their status at a traffic stop. One client who is in the country legally through a program, with no criminal history, was taken from St. George to Las Vegas and is now being detained in Tacoma, Washington. 

Trujillo said no one has been able to explain why they were arrested or give any reason to keep them when they pose no threat to society.

He said he expects that in a lot of these cases the people will be detained for years. 

“In the words of the ICE agents that we’ve been dealing with, the order for some people is to not be released and to stay in prison until they finish their case. And in some of these cases, most of these cases, the wait can pass years.”

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

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