U.S. military will set up 6 tent cities near border to house migrants

Catherine Garcia, The Week US's avatar
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A tent city for migrants in Texas.
(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

The Department of Homeland Security has asked the military to provide and erect tents near the southern border in order to house 7,500 undocumented migrants, a Defense Department spokesperson confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday.

The request for assistance came on May 9, Maj. Chris Mitchell said, and the Pentagon "will not provide detention or custodial support for detained aliens at these [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] detention facilities."

The tents will go up in six different locations, and it's unlikely they will be built on military bases, NBC News reports.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.