President Donald Trump, who has made deporting immigrants a prominent component of his campaign and government, said on Wednesday that the United States will imprison tens of thousands of the “worst criminal aliens” in a detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
“We’re going to send them to Guantánamo,” Trump stated at the signing of the Laken Riley Act.
He subsequently signed a presidential decree directing federal officials to prepare facilities to handle criminal immigrants in the United States illegally. According to border czar Tom Homan, the facility will be operated by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, the specifics of the strategy were not immediately evident.
Here’s a look at the US naval installation, often known as “Gitmo,” and its history:
How does the United States government use the Guantánamo Bay base?
While the US naval base in Cuba is most known for bringing in suspects after the 9/11 attacks, it also includes a tiny, separate facility that has been used to imprison migrants for decades.
The Migrant Operations Center is used to intercept persons attempting to illegally enter the United States by boat. Most come from Haiti and Cuba.
The center occupies a small portion of the base, contains just a few buildings, and has nowhere near the capability to house the 30,000 individuals Trump said might be transferred there.
“We’re simply going to expand upon the existing migrant center,” Homan told reporters.
The migrant detention center functions independently of the military’s detention center and courtrooms for foreigners imprisoned by President George W. Bush during his administration’s “war on terror.” That facility contains 15 inmates, including the suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. That is down from a peak of around 800.
Who will be kept in Guantánamo?
Guantánamo’s migrant detention facilities will house “the worst of the worst,” according to administration officials.
When speaking to reporters outside the White House, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Homan used the same term.
A White House statement was less precise, stating that the new facility will “provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States, and to address attendant immigration enforcement needs.”
An administration official, commenting under the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk publicly on the subject, stated that it would be used to detain “dangerous criminals” and those who are “hard to deport.”
Several nations refuse to take some of the immigrants that the United States wants to deport.
Trump has often warned Americans about the risks posed by the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. While immigrants are frequently charged with severe crimes, they represent a small fraction of the general population. Peer-reviewed academic research have typically shown no relationship between immigration and violent crime, albeit the findings differ.
What else is known about the Migrant Operations Centre?
Not much. According to a study released last year by the NGO International Refugee Assistance Project, refugees are being confined in “prison-like” circumstances. It stated that they were “trapped in a punitive system” indefinitely, with no responsibility for the authorities administering it.
Deepa Alagesan, the group’s senior supervising attorney, said Wednesday that they believe it is used to house a limited number of individuals — “in the double digits,” she said.
She was concerned about utilizing it for a large number of immigrants.
“It’s definitely a scary prospect,” she remarked.
Does the United States have enough prison room for Trump’s plans?
Trump has promised to deport millions of individuals residing illegally in the United States, but the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget only covers roughly 41,000 people.
ICE detains immigrants in processing centers, privately owned detention facilities, and local prisons and jails. It has no facilities for detaining families, who make up nearly one-third of all entries at the southern US border.
During his first administration, Trump approved the use of military bases to keep migrant children. In 2014, then-President Barack Obama briefly used military facilities to imprison undocumented children while expanding privately managed family detention centers to accommodate many of the tens of thousands of Central American families apprehended illegally crossing the border.
Since the 1970s, the United States has utilized military sites to relocate waves of immigrants escaping Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.
What do lawyers involved in 9/11 cases say?
The decision to send immigrants to Guantánamo “should horrify us all,” according to a legal advocacy group that has represented scores of detainees jailed there since the 9/11 attacks.
According to Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Trump’s order “sends a clear message: migrants and asylum seekers are being cast as the new terrorist threat, deserving to be discarded in an island prison and removed from legal and social services and supports.”
What’s the reaction in Cuba?
The United States has leased Guantánamo Bay from Cuba for more than a century. Cuba opposes the lease and usually refuses the modest US rent payments.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced the decision on Wednesday, calling it “an act of brutality” against X and described the base as “located in illegally occupied #Cuba territory.”
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez stated on X, “The US government’s decision to imprison migrants at the Guantánamo Naval Base, in an enclave where it created torture and indefinite detention centers, shows contempt for the human condition and international law.”
