 "Trump orders preparation of migrant detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba reacts")
In his latest crackdown on illegal immigrants, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order which called for the preparation of a massive detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. After signing the order, Trump claimed that the detention facility would be able to hold up to 30,000 immigrants who would be deported from the US, The Hill reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump signalled that he intended to issue an order instructing the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to open a centre in order to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people”.
“Some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust the countries [of origin] to hold them because we don’t want them coming back,” he exclaimed. “So we’re going to send them out to Guantánamo. This will double our capacity immediately," he furthered. It is pertinent to note that the US naval base outpost in Guantánamo Bay, in south-eastern Cuba, already has a facility which is used to house immigrants who have been picked up at sea.
Other than this, there is also a high-security prison for foreign terrorism suspects which was established in the aftermath of the devastating 9/11 attacks conducted by Al-Qaida in the US. The Pentagon has been hush-hush about the detention facility that already exists in the region, with no mention of it in the government records.
In February last year, The New York Times reported that the DHS had detained four people in the facility. Trump’s latest executive order came soon after he announced that he had signed the Laken Riley Act. The legislation passed by the two chambers of the US Congress mandates the detention of undocumented immigrants who are charged with theft-related crimes. The act was named after a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was murdered by undocumented immigrants from Venezuela in 2023.
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More ShortsThe order will prevent ‘border invasion’: Trump
The executive order regarding the detention facility came a little later on Wednesday afternoon. “I hereby direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States and to address attendant immigration enforcement needs identified by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security," Trump announced after signing the order.
“This memorandum is issued in order to halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty," he added. Since taking over the White House on January 20, Trump has signed a slew of executive orders aimed at cracking down on immigration. This included declaring a “national emergency” which led to the deployment of US troops to the southern border.
He has also suspended the nation’s refugee resettlement program and revoked temporary protected status for people fleeing humanitarian crises. Meanwhile, the latest Pentagon update revealed that 15 prisoners are remaining at Guantánamo prison complex, the smallest number of detainees in the facility’s 22-year history. This happened because, during his final days in office, former President Joe Biden accelerated the transfer of Guantánamo inmates to third countries.
Cuba reacts
Cuba responded to the matter, soon after Trump signed the order. The foreign minister of the Latin American nation said that Trump’s idea “shows contempt towards the human condition and international law”. “The US government’s decision to imprison migrants at the Guantánamo Naval Base, in an enclave where it created torture centres and indefinite detention," the Cuban diplomat wrote in the post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Decisión gob EEUU de encarcelar en Base Naval en Guantánamo a migrantes, en enclave donde creó centros de tortura y detención indefinida, muestra desprecio hacia condición humana y Derecho Internacional
— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) January 29, 2025
Es en territorio de #Cuba ilegalmente ocupado fuera jurisdicción cortes EEUU pic.twitter.com/riqxW5lSni
Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, called the plan “an act of brutality”. Amid the chaos, Amnesty International also released a statement, emphasising that Guantánamo has been a “site of torture, indefinite detention without charge or trial and other unlawful practices." They insisted that Trump should be using his authority to close the prison and not repurposing it for offshore immigration detention.
With inputs from agencies.
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