Trump says US will send some migrants to Guantanamo Bay

US President Donald Trump has ordered the development of a migrant detention facility in Guantanamo Bay which he mentioned would maintain as many as 30,000 individuals.

He mentioned the ability on the US Navy base in Cuba, which might be separate from its high-security navy jail, would home “the worst felony unlawful aliens threatening the American individuals”.

Guantanamo Bay has lengthy been used to deal with immigrants, a follow that has been criticised by some human rights teams.

In a while Wednesday, Trump’s “border tsar” Tom Homan mentioned the prevailing facility there can be expanded and run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

He mentioned the migrants could possibly be transported there instantly after being intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard, and that the “highest” detention requirements can be utilized.

It’s unclear how a lot the ability will price or when it will be accomplished.

Cuba’s authorities swiftly condemned the plan, accusing the US of torture and unlawful detention on “occupied” land.

Trump’s announcement got here as he signed the so-called Laken Riley Act into regulation, which requires undocumented immigrants who’re arrested for theft or violent crimes to be held in jail pending trial.

The invoice, named after a Georgia nursing scholar who was murdered final 12 months by a Venezuelan migrant, was authorised by Congress final week, an early legislative win for the administration.

At a signing ceremony within the East Room of the White Home, Trump mentioned the brand new Guantanamo government order would instruct the departments of defence and homeland safety to “start getting ready” the 30,000-bed facility.

“A few of them are so dangerous we do not even belief the nations to carry them, as a result of we do not need them coming again,” he mentioned of migrants. “So we will ship them to Guantanamo… it is a robust place to get out.”

In line with Trump, the ability will double the US capability to carry undocumented migrants.

The US has already been utilizing a facility in Guantanamo – generally known as the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Middle (GMOC) – for many years and thru numerous administrations, each Republican and Democrat.

In a 2024 report, the Worldwide Refugee Help Undertaking (IRAP) accused the federal government of secretly holding migrants there in “inhumane” situations indefinitely after detaining them at sea.

The GMOC has principally housed migrants picked up at sea and was not too long ago the topic of a Freedom of Data request by the American Civil Liberties Union for the disclosure of data concerning the website.

The Biden Administration responded that it “isn’t a detention facility and not one of the migrants there are detained”.

The Trump administration, nonetheless, says the deliberate expanded facility could be very a lot meant as a detention centre.

It will reportedly ask Congress to fund the growth of the prevailing detention facility as a part of a spending invoice Republicans are working to assemble.

When requested by reporters on the White Home, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem mentioned solely that the cash can be allotted by way of “reconciliation and appropriations”.

The navy jail on Guantanamo has, for many years, held detainees taken into US custody after the 9/11 assaults on the US in 2001.

At its peak it held a whole lot of prisoners, and a number of other Democratic presidents together with Barack Obama have vowed to shut it. There are 15 prisoners at the moment being held there.

Information of the ability’s growth was met with swift condemnation by the Cuban authorities, which has lengthy thought of Guantanamo Bay to be “occupied” and has denounced the existence of a US naval base on the island ever since Fidel Castro swept to energy in 1959.

“In act act of brutality, the brand new authorities of the US has introduced it is going to incarcerate, on the naval base at Guantanamo, positioned in illegally occupied Cuban territory, hundreds of forcibly expulsed migrants, who will likely be positioned close to identified prisons of torture and unlawful detention,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on X.

The Cuban Overseas Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, mentioned the announcement confirmed “contempt for the human situation and worldwide regulation”.