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Replace, April 11, 2025: After this story was ready for publication, Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted on a federal procurement web site that it had awarded a brand new contract price as much as $3.8 billion to Deployed Assets to function a migrant detention camp on Fort Bliss. It’s the largest contract the corporate has obtained and the primary time ICE is shifting forward with plans to detain hundreds of individuals arrested within the U.S. on army bases in tents earlier than they’re deported.
In June 2005, a former worker from the Federal Emergency Administration Company toured the grounds of the Bonnaroo music pageant in rural Tennessee. He wasn’t there to see the headliners, which included Dave Matthews Band and the lead singer of the favored jam band Phish. He was there to fulfill the fellows establishing the bogs for the throng of psychedelics-infused campers in attendance: Richard Stapleton, a building business veteran, and his enterprise associate Robert Napior, a onetime convicted pot grower, who specialised in establishing music festivals.
The assembly, described in court docket paperwork, provided the pair’s fledgling firm, Deployed Assets, a key introduction to gamers doing authorities contract work for the Division of Homeland Safety, the company that oversees not solely the nation’s catastrophe responses but in addition its immigration system. Over the subsequent twenty years, Stapleton and Napior employed greater than a dozen former company insiders as they turned their small-time logistics enterprise, which had helped help out of doors festivals like Lollapalooza, right into a contracting large by constructing camps for a totally totally different use: detaining immigrants arriving on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Now, as the federal government races to hold out President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign promise of mass deportations, Deployed is shifting its enterprise as soon as extra — from holding people who find themselves attempting to enter the nation to detaining these the federal government is looking for to ship out.
In Trump’s second time period in workplace, the federal government is poised to spend tens of billions of {dollars} on immigration detention, together with unprecedented plans to carry immigrants arrested within the U.S. in huge tent camps on army bases. One not too long ago revealed request for contract proposals mentioned the Division of Homeland Safety might spend as much as $45 billion over the subsequent a number of years on immigrant detention. The plans have set off a gold rush amongst contractors. All this spending is unfolding on the identical time the federal government has made sweeping cuts to federal companies and shed different contracts.
Amongst these looking for a windfall is Deployed Assets, which, together with its sister firm, Deployed Providers, has tailored to shifting authorities insurance policies and priorities in immigration enforcement.
Beginning in 2016, to assist reply to spikes in immigrant crossings that had periodically overwhelmed border stations, Deployed started establishing tent encampments to ease the overcrowding. These short-term buildings served as short-term emergency waystations, which a number of former officers mentioned supplied flexibility that the U.S. wanted. Lots of these arriving — together with households and unaccompanied kids — had been turning themselves in, hoping to be launched into the U.S. to use for asylum. In all, the corporate has been awarded greater than $4 billion in authorities contracts constructing and working border tents, based on an evaluation of contracting information by ProPublica.
Since taking workplace in January, Trump has cracked down on asylum, pushing border crossings to report lows. Final month, the U.S. Customs and Border Safety mentioned it now not wanted the tent services run by Deployed.
As an alternative, ProPublica discovered, the army will now be contracting with Deployed to make use of a type of border services to deal with folks arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In March, one of many firm’s tent complexes in El Paso, Texas, was handed over to ICE, CBP and ICE spokespeople mentioned. In an uncommon transfer, the Trump administration tapped funds from the Division of Protection to pay Deployed for the ability, citing the president’s declaration of an emergency on the southern border, a DOD spokesperson mentioned. The almost $140 million contract wasn’t posted publicly and was given to Deployed because the “incumbent contractor,” the spokesperson mentioned, with out additional explaining why ICE would use army funds. ICE mentioned it began transferring detainees to the positioning — which at present has the capability to deal with 1,000 adults — on March 10.
As immigration raids escalate, detention area within the nation’s current community of everlasting ICE prisons is filling up. There are at present round 48,000 immigrants locked up throughout the nation, ranges not seen since 2019. Deportations are taking place at a slower tempo than ICE arrests, based on information shared with ProPublica, so the administration is popping to firms that may shortly arrange services.
Because it seems to be to broaden its capability, the company “is exploring all choices to fulfill its present and future detention necessities,” mentioned ICE spokesman Miguel Alvarez.
But utilizing tents to deal with hundreds of individuals arrested by ICE is basically totally different from utilizing them to deal with latest border crossers, lots of whom weren’t speculated to be held for quite a lot of days, seven present and former DHS officers who served in each Republican and Democratic administrations informed ProPublica.
They mentioned it might be the primary time these tent camps could be used for ICE detainees within the U.S. and that it was unclear how they could possibly be constructed to fulfill the company’s fundamental well being and security necessities. These embrace separate areas for women and men and devoted zones for households, in addition to area to segregate those that are probably violent, and personal assembly areas for attorneys and their purchasers. The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t instantly concerned within the contracts.
“Folks that you simply’ve ripped out of the neighborhood, folks you’ve arrested, individuals who wish to get again to their kids, people who find themselves scared, are going to behave in another way than the border crossing inhabitants,” mentioned one former ICE official. “You have got much more worry within the inhabitants.”
“It could take a exceptional diploma of innovation from a contractor,” mentioned one other former DHS official, including, “It could even be extremely costly.”
At a border safety convention this week, ICE Performing Assistant Director for Operations Help Ralph Ferguson mentioned that Deployed Assets was modifying the CBP tents in El Paso by including extra inflexible buildings inside, which he mentioned would make them safer. Deployed received a further contract for as much as $5 million to supply unarmed guards on the El Paso facility, based on a public discover posted in late March.
The corporate didn’t reply to requests for remark. On its web site, Deployed says it’s “devoted to securely and effectively offering clear facility help and logistical providers, anytime, wherever” and describes itself as “the first-choice supplier” for presidency contracts.
Deployed was additionally one of many firms all in favour of working an immigrant detention camp on the close by Fort Bliss army base, based on authorities paperwork obtained by ProPublica and interviews with folks conversant in the contracting course of. ICE was looking for proposals from distributors final month for a 1,000-bed camp that might develop to five,000 beds, housing ladies and men, together with these deemed excessive safety dangers, in addition to households with babies. The contractor could be chargeable for separating these teams and stopping escapes, paperwork reviewed by ProPublica present.
The plans are “a recipe for catastrophe,” mentioned Eunice Hyunhye Cho, an legal professional with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Nationwide Jail Challenge.
“All the issues that we see with ICE detention writ massive, just like the abuse of drive, the sexual assault, medical neglect, the shortage of meals, lack of entry to counsel, lack of due course of rights, lack of entry to telephones — the checklist goes on — all of these issues are going to be vastly extra sophisticated in a system the place you might be actually establishing folks in tents which are surrounded by barbed wire and armed army personnel,” Cho mentioned.
Connections and Contracts
Since 2016, Deployed Assets has loved a digital monopoly on offering CBP with immigration tent buildings to assist with sudden influxes of immigrants. Through the first Trump administration, the contractor arrange short-term tent courts for folks pressured to attend in Mexico for his or her asylum hearings beneath a coverage often known as the Migrant Safety Protocols. The corporate additionally earned a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} throughout the Biden years working emergency detention services for unaccompanied minors that had been funded by the Division of Well being and Human Providers.
Although the worth of Deployed Assets isn’t publicly recognized, county actual property information attest to the wealth its house owners, Stapleton and Napior, have amassed within the detention enterprise.
Within the spring of 2019, shortly after the corporate landed what was then its largest immigration contract — a $92 million no-bid award to run two tent services in Texas — Stapleton bought a $5.7 million apartment in Naples, Florida. Almost three years and greater than $1 billion in contracts later, he upgraded to a $15 million dwelling a block away from the shore. Napior snapped up a $9 million beachside property close to Sarasota, Florida, in 2023. Stapleton didn’t reply to requests for remark. Reached by telephone, Napior mentioned he didn’t remark to the press after which hung up.
After the assembly at Bonnaroo in 2005, Deployed later employed the previous FEMA worker who had checked out its services there and to win emergency administration contracting work on the company earlier than shifting into immigration detention. In court docket filings, Deployed mentioned that the assembly didn’t result in its FEMA work.
Deployed went on to rent further former DHS officers over time, increasing its connections to the federal companies with which it does enterprise. With a second Trump administration poised to crack down additional on the movement of immigrants to the southern border — a possible menace to Deployed’s core enterprise — the corporate employed a number of former ICE leaders, based on on-line searches and present and former officers.
A month after Trump’s victory, former ICE discipline workplace director Sean Ervin introduced he was becoming a member of Deployed as a senior adviser for strategic initiatives. He had beforehand overseen removing operations throughout Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The top of discipline operations for ICE Miami, Michael Meade — an 18-year company veteran — additionally joined Deployed that month, based on their profiles on LinkedIn. Meade and Ervin didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Deployed has continued to win federal enterprise even after the spending on the corporate’s contracts was criticized by authorities watchdogs and a whistleblower.
A evaluate by Congress’ Authorities Accountability Workplace of 1 no-bid CBP contract that the primary Trump administration awarded to Deployed discovered that the corporate’s 2,500-person facility in Tornillo, Texas, averaged simply 30 detainees an evening within the fall of 2019 and by no means held greater than 68 throughout the five-month interval it was open. It additionally discovered that CBP paid Deployed tens of millions for meals it didn’t have to feed folks it wasn’t holding. Deployed agreed to reimburse $250,000 for meals not delivered, the GAO mentioned.
A separate whistleblower lawsuit in New Hampshire introduced by a former DHS official who labored for Deployed accuses the corporate of chopping corners on coaching its employees to detect and report sexual abuse of kids in services it set as much as home unaccompanied minors throughout the Biden administration. In court docket filings, Deployed mentioned it “vigorously disputes the allegations” and has moved to dismiss the go well with.
Development crews work on an immigrant holding facility in Tornillo, Texas, in 2019. Deployed Assets was contracted to construct and supply help providers for the two,500-person detention middle, nevertheless it closed in 2020 after months of low occupancy.
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Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters
Final 12 months, Dan Bishop, a former Republican congressman from North Carolina, held up a Deployed Providers contract in Greensboro, North Carolina, for instance of waste throughout a listening to on unaccompanied migrant kids. The corporate was paid almost $40 million to assist function a facility for immigrant kids, Bishop mentioned, nevertheless it stood empty for over two years.
Deployed nonetheless had staff there full time, based on interviews with three former workers conversant in the ability, tasking them with playacting as in the event that they had been offering care. Case managers invented case particulars and Deployed staff would role-play as college students in lecture rooms, even asking for permission to go to the lavatory, based on the previous Deployed staff and social media posts of former staff describing the surreal scenario.
“I don’t know why they had been doing that with authorities cash,” mentioned one former case supervisor, who recalled inventing elaborate backstories for fictional kids, filling out make-believe statements and different paperwork for hours every day. The case supervisor spent a few 12 months in Greensboro, residing in housing paid for by Deployed from its authorities contract. Deployed didn’t reply to requests for remark about its Greensboro contract.
Now, with much more cash to be spent on immigration detention, Deployed is simply one of many firms hoping to learn. Along with Fort Bliss greater than 10 army websites across the nation are being thought of for ICE detention services, based on a DHS doc shared with ProPublica. The New York Occasions beforehand reported on components of the plan.
The Fort Bliss contracting course of has proceeded principally out of public view, and it’s not clear if the venture would go ahead or fall beneath the bigger $45 billion plan to broaden immigration detention. In March, representatives from at the least 10 firms, together with Deployed Assets, toured Fort Bliss with DHS officers to survey the positioning, mentioned two folks conversant in the go to. Additionally there have been personal jail giants The GEO Group and CoreCivic, the sources mentioned.
The GEO Group’s management and allied political motion teams donated greater than $1 million to Trump’s reelection effort, based on a evaluate by the Challenge on Authorities Oversight, a nonpartisan Washington watchdog group. On its most up-to-date earnings name, GEO’s CEO mentioned Trump’s immigration agenda was an “unprecedented alternative” for the agency. CoreCivic — which donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration committee — has additionally spoken in regards to the enterprise alternatives. After Trump’s election, inventory costs for each firms jumped.
CoreCivic mentioned it’s in “common contact” with authorities companies “to grasp their altering wants” however mentioned that it doesn’t touch upon contracts it’s looking for. Its contribution to inauguration occasions was “according to our previous observe of civic participation” supporting each events. The GEO Group didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Deployed Providers has largely eschewed political donations, sticking to its technique — additionally utilized by GEO and CoreCivic — of hiring former high-ranking authorities officers.
Just a few weeks in the past Deployed scored one other high-profile ICE rent: Marlen Pineiro joined Deployed after 40 years in authorities, together with greater than a decade in ICE’s Senior Govt Service, based on her LinkedIn profile. At a border safety convention this week, the place a number of former high-ranking DHS workers employed by Deployed had been gathered amongst business vets and Trump immigration officers, Pineiro declined an interview request from a ProPublica reporter.
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However on LinkedIn, the congratulations rolled in. The appearing head of ICE beneath Trump, Todd Lyons, posted: “Nice information.” Two different senior ICE officers who had additionally not too long ago joined Deployed commented: “Welcome aboard.”
“Let’s sail away,” Pineiro replied. “Woohooo see you quickly.”
Be aware: ProPublica analyzed transaction-level contract information from usaspending.gov for this story. Contract quantities reported are federal obligations over the lifetime of a contract or group of contracts. Within the case of the not too long ago introduced Division of Protection award to Deployed Assets, the contract is new and price as much as $140 million.
Perla Trevizo contributed reporting and Kirsten Berg contributed analysis.
