Rachel Maddow

They only opened Camp East Montana in August.

Already at least three people have died there, including one whose death was ruled a homicide by the county medical examiner, a homicide at the hands of staff at that facility.

They wanted Camp East Montana to hold 5,000 people, but they never got the numbers there close to it.

What with the people dying there, and the measles outbreak there, and the freaking tuberculosis there.

Seriously.

They've now reduced the number of people held at Camp East Montana to roughly 1,500 people.

Within the past few days, there have been reports that they may be closing Camp East Montana altogether.

And of course, it's all quite opaque.

The Washington Post reporting that it looks like Camp East Montana is closing down.

The El Paso Times obtaining an internal email that suggests, okay, maybe it's not closing down.

But, you know, it's clear, even from their inability to fill that facility, that that facility, their largest facility thus far, has been a failure for them thus far.

I mean, just in terms of the scale of this thing, the largest federal prison, like, real prison in the United States holds 4,000 people.

Why did they think that under the wise, experienced leadership of Kristi Noem, they'd be instantly able to stand up a massive facility even larger than the largest federal prison in the United States?

And it wouldn't just be one.

They want to stand up massive facilities all over the country, all of which will hold way more people than the largest federal prison in America.

I mean, Camp East Montana is the biggest one they've tried to operate yet.

at 5,000 beds, right?

It is already a catastrophic failure and is limping along now with multiple disease outbreaks and multiple deaths, and it's only at roughly 30% of its 5,000-person capacity.

So tell me how it's going to go when they try to open these new facilities they're trying to build in these warehouses to hold not 5,000 people, but 7,000 people, 8,000 people, 10,000 people, 14,000 to 16,000 people are the highest numbers they have proposed for some of what they're calling these mega facilities.

You think they're capable of running those?