Switch the White House newsletter on free of charge
Your guide to what the US election 2024 means for Washington and the world
Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare the US marine base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to receive thousands of immigrants with a criminal register.
The US President announced the plan from the White House on Wednesday to massively expand the use of a facility that has been the goal for top-class terrorist suspects since 2002.
The move comes when the Trump administration tries to avoid a promised approach to undocumented Immigrantincluding the First raids in large cities And the use of troops on the Mexican border.
“We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to capture the worst criminal illegal foreigners that threaten the American people.” Trump card said. “Some of them are so bad that we don’t even trust the countries that they hold them. Because we don’t want you to come back, we will send you to Guantánamo. “
Trump has strong pressure on countries like Mexico and exerted Colombia Accept immigrants sent from the USA Back to their countries of origin, but his comments indicate that some would be transferred to the military base in Cuba instead.
The President said that he asked the US Defense Ministry and the Homeland Security Authority to “prepare” the establishment of Guantánamo Bay to accommodate the migrants.
“This will double our capacity, right? It is a difficult place to get out, ”added Trump. Later he signed a memorandum to implement the plan.
“We are pursuing this boys,” said Kristi Noem, the secretary of the home protection, in the White House on Wednesday afternoon and spoke alongside Tom Homan, Trump’s border zar.
Homan said the immigration and customs authority would lead the facility in Cuba. “There is already a migrant center there, it has been there for decades. So we will only expand the existing migrant center, ”he said.
The US marine base in Guantánamo Bay has housed migrants in the past, including refugees from Haiti, but not on the scale that Trump proposed in its comments on Wednesday. During his presidential campaign last year, he repeatedly promised the mass deportations to the estimated 11 meters in the United States, although the information from the administrative officials announced that they can determine the initial priority of deporting those with penalty registers.
The naval base on the island has been rented out by Cuba in the United States since 1903 and, despite decades of economic embargo, was maintained on the island nation. During the “war against the horror”, prison became known for the alleged torture and abuse of people in the facility.
