A company was awarded a $1.2B contract for a detention center to house migrants. The group behind it remain a mystery

A $1.2 billion contrract has been awarded to build a migrant detention facility in Texas, but little is known about the Virginia company that was awarded the deal.

The contract was awarded to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a Virginia-based company, last month to build and operate the 5,000-bed, short-term detention facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas as the resident Donald Trump seeks to conduct the “largest deportation operation” in the country’s history. The Army is contributing $232 million to the project, which is expected to be completed by the end of September 2027, according to a Defense Department contract notice.

But, the group that won the deal remains shrouded in mystery.

The company doesn’t appear to have experience with detention, but focuses on supply chain management and other services, including for the U.S. military, Bloomberg reported. It’s received contracts worth about $29 million from the Defense Department over the past five fiscal years, according to government records seen by the outlet, but nothing near the detention center scale.

The company was founded in 2008 and is described as a 39-person “veteran-owned, small disadvantaged business specializing in the entire acquisition-logistics lifecycle,” according to its ZoomInfo profile.

Acquisition Logistics’ website requires a login. The address listed as the company’s headquarters leads to a residential home. The company’s CEO Ken A. Wagner hasn’t spoken publicly about the $1.2 billion deal and didn’t respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Even the solicitation notice, seen by the AP, mandated some privacy, requiring the contractor to inform Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials about requests and calls from members of Congress or the press, the outlet reported.

The lack of information about the company has concerned some experts and officials, especially after the equally swift construction of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a Florida facility that has been plagued by lawsuits and allegations of inhumane conditions. A federal judge ordered the facility’s operations to be wound down and required all detainees to be relocated within 60 days.

“It’s far too easy for standards to slip,” Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss, told the AP. “Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.”

“The lack of transparency about this contract leads to legitimate questions about why the Army would award such a large contract to a company without a website or any other publicly available information demonstrating its ability to perform such a complicated project,” said Joshua Schnell, an attorney specializing in federal contracting law.

Within days of the contract being awarded, construction began at Fort Bliss. Three white tents, each about 810 feet long, have been put up, according to satellite imagery.

The use of military bases as detention centers harkens back to World War II, when Japanese Americans were imprisoned at Fort Bliss and other Army camps, Setareh Ghandehari, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Detention Watch, told the outlet. Military facilities are particularly susceptible to abuse and neglect because they’re not easy for loved ones to access, she said.

“Conditions at all detention facilities are inherently awful,” Ghandehari said. “But when there’s less access and oversight, it creates the potential for even more abuse.”

The decision to award the contract to the small business is unusual. The majority of the roughly 57,000 migrants detained by ICE are housed at private prisons operated by companies such as Geo Group and CoreCivic.

The bidding was open only to small firms, the AP reported, noting that the company received “preferential status” because of its designation as a Hispanic-owned small disadvantaged business.

The Army declined to discuss its deal with Acquisition Logistics or reveal details about the camp’s construction, citing the litigation over the company’s qualifications. The Independent has asked the Army for more information.

Gemini Tech Services filed a protest to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, challenging the award and alleging Acquisition Logistics “lacks the experience, staffing and resources to perform the work,” a source familiar with the complaint told the AP.

The Independent has reached out to Gemini for comment.