President Donald Trump, who made the deportation of immigrants a central part of his campaign and presidency, said that the US will use a detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to hold tens of thousands of the worst criminal aliens
Published Date – 30 January 2025, 09:49 AM
Washington: President Donald Trump, who made the deportation of immigrants a central part of his campaign and presidency, said that the US will use a detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to hold tens of thousands of the “worst criminal aliens.”
“We’re going to send them out to Guantánamo,” Trump said at the signing of the Laken Riley Act.
Here’s a look at the US naval base, widely known as “Gitmo,” and its history:
How does the US government use the base at Guantánamo Bay?
While the US naval base in Cuba is best known for the suspects brought in after the September 11, 2001, attacks, it has a small, separate facility used for decades to hold migrants. The Migrant Operations Center is used for people intercepted trying to illegally reach the US by boat. Most are from Haiti and Cuba.
The center takes up a tiny part of the base, includes just a handful of buildings and has nowhere near the capacity to house the 30,000 people Trump said could be sent there.
The migrant detention center operates separately from the military’s detention center and courtrooms for foreigners detained under President George W Bush during what that administration called its “war on terror.” That facility houses 15 detainees, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. That’s down from its peak of nearly 800.
Who will be held at Guantánamo?
The migrant detention facilities at Guantánamo will be used for “the worst of the worst,” administration officials said. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Homan both used the phrase when speaking to reporters outside the White House.
A White House statement was less specific, saying the expanded facility would “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, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said it would be used to house “dangerous criminals” and people who are “hard to deport.”
While immigrants are regularly charged with committing major crimes, they are a tiny percentage of the overall population. Peer-reviewed academic studies have generally found no link between immigration and violent crime, though conclusions vary.
What else is known about the Migrant Operations Center?
Not much. The nonprofit International Refugee Assistance Project said in a report last year that people are held in “prison-like” conditions. It said they were “trapped in a punitive system” indefinitely, with no accountability for the officials running it. Deepa Alagesan, a senior supervising attorney with the group, said Wednesday that they believed it is used to hold a small number of people — “in the double digits,” she estimated.
Does the US have sufficient detention space for Trump’s plans?
Trump has vowed to deport millions of people living illegally in the US, but the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget only has enough funds to detain about 41,000 people. ICE detains immigrants at its processing centers and privately operated detention facilities, along with local prisons and jails. It has no facilities geared toward the detention of families, who account for roughly one-third of arrivals on the southern US border. During Trump’s first term, he authorised the use of military bases to detain migrant children.