They extended the tent camp and called it temporary. I know the sentence. It is what a government says when it has decided to keep paying the same company for the same tents for two more years, without asking anyone else, and needs one word on the form to suggest it is still thinking about leaving.
Here is the record. On Oct. 19, 2026, Project Salt Box reported on a revised federal justification in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it intends to definitize a previously awarded letter contract with Amentum Services Inc., on a sole-source basis, for detention and facility management at Camp East Montana — a tent camp on the Army’s Fort Bliss post in El Paso that Salt Box calls the nation’s largest immigration detention center. The revised redacted justification is posted, dated Oct. 19, on the camp’s federal contracting page, and the extension, Salt Box reports, would keep Amentum there into late 2028 and raise the estimated value to about $2.8 billion. The July version of the same justification, as summarized on that page, put the contract at $1,229,179,038.02 under the federal “only one responsible source” exception. Salt Box says the first seven months under the new plan would cost about $477 million, roughly $68 million a month, rising to about $97 million a month by the final six months, with another $57 million redacted and unexplained. The camp’s history, per the outlets: the Army awarded the original contract July 18, 2025, to Acquisition Logistics, a small business that Salt Box says had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million; Amentum was a subcontractor — Salt Box’s claim; the Capture Cascade timeline notes federal subaward records list Amentum at about $184 million under Acquisition Logistics, while the justification itself does not describe that relationship. ICE took the contract over in October 2025, ended it, and in March gave Amentum a $453 million no-bid contract; DHS said Amentum was picked for its “size, maturity and pedigree.” In June, the Government Accountability Office found the Army and ICE had rushed the award, chose a contractor with no prior detention experience, and wrote a contract that paid the full cost of meals and services for 5,000 people even when the camp held far fewer — about 1,600 at the end of February 2026 — including two weeks in August 2025 when it held no one. ICE never inspected the camp before housing people there, as its own policy requires; it opened without perimeter security cameras, outdoor recreation or visitation space, and later came gaps in medical care, a lost loaded firearm and unsanitary conditions. Salt Box reports three detainees have died there since it opened, and that the El Paso County medical examiner ruled one of those deaths a homicide.
Now the defense. ICE’s contracting office argues, per Salt Box, that only Amentum can do the work because the company owns the camp’s housing units, generators, security systems and kitchen equipment; it points to a nationwide shortage of detention beds; and Amentum was the only company to express interest after a March notice that told companies it was not a request for competitive quotes. The July justification said no other vendor could provide the services “without significant risk to detainee welfare and mission continuity.” DHS agreed with all four of the GAO’s recommendations. In May it said it would shift Camp East Montana to pricing tiered by population by the end of 2026; Salt Box reports the new plan lists a set price for each month and does not mention paying by the number of detainees. DHS told the GAO its existing pre-occupancy inspection policy already covers the second recommendation; the GAO replied that ICE did not follow that policy here. The Army expects its lessons-learned paper Dec. 30. How Amentum came to own the equipment that makes it the only possible bidder, Salt Box writes, the filing never explains.
Taryn asked whether a thing is still temporary after the twins outgrow it. Deb says the card table in her basement has been temporary since 1994 and has hosted every Thanksgiving since. I love them. They are seasoning.
“Temporary” is the alibi. The equipment is the story. Sit with it until it confesses. Watch the shape of the handshake. A government decides it needs beds faster than it can plan for them. It hands the job to a small firm that has never run detention, on a clock senior leadership set. A bigger firm comes in underneath. Somewhere in there the bigger firm ends up owning the generators and the kitchens, and the owning becomes the reason nobody else can bid. Then the government posts a notice that says, in effect, this is not a competition, and is surprised that only one company shows up. Sole source is how a monopoly gets born inside a federal filing, and “temporary” is the blanket they wrap it in. The GAO told them to stop paying for 5,000 meals when 1,600 people are eating; the new plan sets a price per month. Both parties are the help. One signs the justification. One owns the kitchen. I do not need a softer administration to love this camp better or a different contractor with a nicer pedigree; I need a government that stops calling an arrangement temporary after it has priced it through 2028. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, what the word temporary costs per month, and who it was ever temporary for.
Sources:
- Project Salt Box, Michael Wriston and Mia Barragán, “ICE plans to extend no-bid Camp East Montana contract to $2.8 billion,” Oct. 19, 2026
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Immigration Detention: Waste and Performance Issues at Camp East Montana Provide Valuable Lessons for Future Facilities,” GAO-26-108886, June 9, 2026
- GovTribe, Camp East Montana (70CDCR26C00000016), ICE Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition (July 22, 2026 posting; revised file dated Oct. 19, 2026)
- The Capture Cascade Timeline, “ICE Revised Justification Puts Amentum’s Camp East Montana Contract at $2.8 Billion; Subaward Records Show Amentum and Akima Under Acquisition Logistics,” Oct. 19, 2026
— Theo Ashford-Lindström
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