ICE Extends No-Bid Amentum Contract for Camp East Montana Through 2027 at $776M Additional Cost, Over HRW/ACLU Abuse Findings

ICE announced July 27, 2026 that it is extending its no-bid, sole-source contract with Virginia-based Amentum for Camp East Montana — the largest ICE detention facility in the country, sited at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas — through September 30, 2027, at a potential additional cost of $776 million. Combined with the facility’s prior contract history (the original $1.24B WEXMAC task order, the March 2026 sole-source award documented in 2026-03-11–amentum-services-no-bid-contract-camp-east-montana), Amentum’s total potential payout at the facility now exceeds $1.2 billion.

The extension came over the explicit objections of Democratic members of Congress and advocacy groups who had called for the facility’s closure, following a joint Human Rights Watch/ACLU report documenting routine beatings, denial of medical care, filthy conditions, and inedible food since the Army-run camp opened in August 2025. The extension also proceeds notwithstanding the facility’s own documented record: three deaths, 49 ICE-ODO regulatory violations, a June 2026 GAO finding that the program had “wasted millions” (2026-06-19–ice-megajail-program-retreats-gao-finds-camp-east-montana-wasted-millions), and a homicide ruling in the January 2026 death of Lunas Campos (2026-01-21–lunas-campos-el-paso-medical-examiner-rules-homicide-ice-camp-east-montana).

The no-bid procurement mechanism forecloses any competitive re-bid or closure review — the same pattern documented across the facility’s contract history, where Amentum became the third contractor in roughly 13 months (following Deployed Resources and Acquisition Logistics) without the facility’s operational or safety record ever triggering a competitive process.

Open leads: pull the USASpending contract record to confirm the $776M ceiling and period of performance against the WaPo/PBS figures; identify the specific procurement exception ICE invoked to justify sole-source award given the facility’s documented violation history; find and read the HRW/ACLU report directly rather than relying on secondary characterization — pull specific documented abuse counts and any DHS response; track whether any GAO challenge or bid protest follows.