WASHINGTON, United States — America is beginning to fly detained migrants to America’s infamous Guantanamo army base in Cuba as a part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on unlawful migration, officers stated Tuesday.
Guantanamo is primarily often known as a controversial detention heart for suspects accused of terrorism-related offenses, however the base additionally has a historical past of getting used to carry migrants, and Trump final week ordered the preparation of a 30,000-person “migrant facility” there.
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“Right this moment, the primary flights from the USA to Guantanamo Bay with unlawful migrants are underway,” White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated on Fox Enterprise.
A US protection official instructed AFP Tuesday afternoon that there’s a “flight scheduled immediately to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay with a few dozen high-threat unlawful aliens.”
“They are going to be housed within the detention facility… however is not going to be co-located with high-value detainees presently on the detention facility,” the official stated on situation of anonymity.
This picture obtained from the US Division of Protection exhibits US Marines as they conduct preflight checks on a KC-130J Tremendous Hercules at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Level, North Carolina, on February 2, 2025, because it prepares to deploy troops to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to help Migrant Holding Operations. US President Donald Trump has stated he desires to ship 30,000 “prison unlawful aliens” to the infamous Guantanamo Bay US army base in Cuba. | Photograph by Orlanys Diaz Figueroa / US Division of Protection / AFP
Trump has launched what his second administration is casting as a serious effort to fight unlawful migration, trumpeting immigration raids, arrests and deportations on army plane.
The president has made the difficulty a precedence on the worldwide stage as nicely, threatening Colombia with sanctions and big tariffs for turning again two planeloads of deportees.
The Guantanamo jail was opened within the wake of the September 11, 2001 assaults and has been used to indefinitely maintain detainees seized through the wars and different operations that adopted.
‘Good place’
The situations there have prompted constant outcry from rights teams, and UN consultants have condemned it as a web site of “unparalleled notoriety.”
Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden each sought to shut the ability, however Congress has opposed efforts to shutter Guantanamo and it stays open to this present day.
It nonetheless holds 15 folks incarcerated for militant exercise or terrorism-related offenses, amongst them a number of accused plotters of the 9/11 assaults, together with self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Based on US Southern Command, there are some 300 American army personnel at Guantanamo supporting “unlawful alien holding operations.”
This picture obtained from the US Division of Protection exhibits US Marines boarding a KC-130J Tremendous Hercules at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Level, North Carolina, on February 2, 2025, as they deploy to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to help Migrant Holding Operations.| Photograph by Orlanys Diaz Figueroa / US Division of Protection / AFP
The bottom has for many years been used to carry Caribbean asylum seekers and refugees caught at sea, and was used within the Nineties to deal with tens of 1000’s of Haitians and Cubans who fled crises of their homelands.
They have been accommodated in tent cities, with many finally despatched dwelling after being held at Guantanamo for years.
Hundreds of undocumented migrants have been arrested since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, together with some accused of crimes.
An unknown quantity have been repatriated to Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil and different international locations, and Trump has vowed to expel hundreds of thousands.
US Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday described Guantanamo because the “excellent place” to detain migrants as he visited the border with Mexico — an space the place the Trump administration has boosted the nation’s army presence in current weeks.
The Pentagon will present any essential property “to help the expulsion and detention of these in our nation illegally,” Hegseth stated.
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