
President Trump has ordered the construction of a 30,000-bed facility to hold migrants at the notorious US naval facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as part of his mass deportation campaign. The US base has been used to house terrorism suspects since 2002, becoming synonymous with torture and unlawful imprisonment. The US has secretively detained refugees and migrants intercepted at sea at Guantánamo Bay for decades, but the facility has not previously been used for people apprehended on US soil or at this scale.
In its first weeks in office, the Trump administration has launched a campaign to round up and deport thousands of undocumented people. Stepped-up deportation flights to Latin American countries are already causing concern and controversy, with Latin leaders saying deportees are being subjected to inhuman treatment. As a result, on Jan. 26, Colombia announced it would not allow US deportation flights to land—but accommodations were reached after Trump threatened steep financial penalties if it did not comply.
From The New Humanitarian, Jan. 31
Photo: Spc. Cody Black/WikiMedia via Jurist
First military flight with detained migrants arrives at Gitmo
The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced the arrival of 10 migrants at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on Feb. 5, after they took off the day before on the first US military plane headed there for the new mission.
The DoD statement said: “These 10 high-threat individuals are currently being housed in vacant detention facilities.” The statement reported that Immigration & Customs Enforcement is ensuring the “safe and secure detention” of the migrants before they are returned to their countries of origin or “other appropriate destination.”
A statement by the US Southern Command explained that “more than 120 service members” arrived at the Naval Station earlier this week to support the migrant “holding operations led by DHS.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released images of the flight, saying that the migrants “were all part of Tren de Aragua” criminal organization. One of Trump’s recent executive orders designates “cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations.” Tren de Aragua was named as having an agenda of “violence and terror in the United States.” According to the DHS release, the “worst of the worst criminals will be held at the military facility” in Guantanamo. (Jurist)