DONNA, Tex. — Federal authorities have been struggling in recent months to accommodate the thousands of migrants arrested at the southern border, but what happens to them in the highly secure federal facilities along the border is often not known. Customs and Border Protection rarely invites outsiders in for a look.

Some images have emerged over the years: A large warehouse in the South Texas city of McAllen, where migrants wait, often in frigid temperatures, in chain-link holding areas; a crowded enclosure underneath a bridge in El Paso, Tex., where immigrants for several days in March slept on gravel littered with paper cups and potato chip bags.

The Border Patrol on Thursday provided a brief public look at its latest attempt to handle the migrant influx: a 40,000 square-foot tent encampment, built over the past 13 days just east of McAllen, to house newly arriving migrants in the Rio Grande Valley.

The tent camp was opening along with a similar temporary structure in El Paso, built at a combined cost of $36.9 million.

The 500-bed Donna facility was preparing for its first new arrivals, expected on Friday, and was outfitted with new clothing, 36 shower stalls, 48-inch flat-screen TVs, DVD players and a stack of children’s movies.

The air-conditioned tent also includes space for medical services, with shelves of supplies already stocked.

Migrants often arrive ill and exhausted at such facilities. In late December, an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died in custody after showing signs of sickness at a Border Patrol facility. Weeks before that, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl, who had fallen ill, also died while in Border Patrol custody. Just this week, a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who had recently been placed in a Texas shelter after being in federal custody died not long after arriving.

The tent camps at Donna and El Paso are not intended for long-term detention, officials said, but to house migrants during the brief period when they are undergoing initial processing by Customs and Border Protection, usually about 48 to 72 hours.

Migrant families, unaccompanied children and single adults will all be housed at the facility, positioned in a large, open field next to the Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge. A few months ago, the spot served as a forward operating base as part of President Trump’s deployment of 5,600 American troops to the southern border.

The Trump administration this week signaled its intent to speed up asylum processing, and the new acting homeland security secretary, Kevin K. McAleenan, has said he wants to keep migrants in custody while their applications are being reviewed.

The new tent in Donna does not stand to do much for either mission. However, it will take a strain off agents processing large groups of migrants at the McAllen building, officials said.

Carmen Qualia, executive officer of operational programs for the Border Patrol, was asked during Thursday’s media tour if the additional space would be enough to keep up with the flow of migrants, which is now averaging about 1,200 arrests a day.

“I hope so,” Ms. Qualia said. “I hope so.”

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