Goodfellow alone might get as many as 20,000 undocumented immigrants to house

Michelle Gaitan | San Angelo

Show Caption Hide Caption Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, TX Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo is home to the 17th Training Wing. It’s primary mission is cryptology, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance training for all military branches.

SAN ANGELO — Goodfellow Air Force Base could initially house as many as 20,000 undocumented immigrants, and El Paso's Fort Bliss could handle another estimated 12,000, according to the MilitaryTimes.

The report, based on a Health and Human Services Department request to the Department of Defense, says the two bases will begin to absorb some of the thousands of immigrant families and unaccompanied children now in U.S. custody after illegally crossing the border.

Army Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, gave those numbers during a Pentagon briefing Monday, July 2, 2018. Reports last week had indicated Goodfellow and Fort Bliss would house a combined total of 20,000.

Manning said longer-term, the Department of Defense is “looking at additional facilities so we can break up those populations, so we can manage the impact on the installations," the article reported.

More: Congressman Mike Conaway says base not proper place for immigrant kids

More: Base operations will not change as Goodfellow shelters immigrant minors

Other facilities under consideration include military posts in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.

The MilitaryTimes reported that, based on an agreement last week, the DoD has 45 days to prepare its facilities and be ready to take the first 2,000 immigrants. The agreement calls for DoD to either make facilities available or to construct facilities.

Under the arrangement with HHS, the Defense Department would provide the land, but the operations would be run by other agencies.

Washington officials have said facilities housing the immigrants will be staffed by Homeland Security officials, and training and military readiness would not be affected.

Last week, Carol Ann Bonds, one of 13 commissioners on the governor’s Texas Military Preparedness Commission, said she has been told the majority of children who could be housed on Goodfellow would be unaccompanied male teenagers who crossed the border without their parents.

More: Few ways yet available to help the undocumented children headed to Goodfellow

More: San Angelo's Goodfellow Air Force Base will house undocumented immigrants

Bonds, who lives in San Angelo near Goodfellow, said tents or “soft-sided facilities” like the ones erected in Tornillo, Texas, a border town about 40 miles southeast of El Paso, would be used to house the children on the base.

The tent city would have its own medical clinic for basic care and food service, but would require a new gate to be installed to cordon off the area

Manning said the department is taking into account the toll that holding a large migrant population could have on the base and its infrastructure, the article reported.

“Really our responsibility is to find suitable land parcels in order to be able to support those populations that they’ve requested,” Manning said. “We’ve done the assessment to determine that the bases that we’ve announced could support the population without any impact to the garrison.”

According to its website, Goodfellow has a population of about 5,500, approximately half of them students.