Trump says US will send some migrants to Guantanamo Bay

US President Donald Trump has ordered the operation of a migrant detention installation successful Guantanamo Bay which helium said would clasp arsenic galore arsenic 30,000 people.

He said the installation astatine the US Navy basal successful Cuba, which would beryllium abstracted from its high-security subject prison, would location "the worst transgression amerciable aliens threatening the American people".

Guantanamo Bay has agelong been utilized to location immigrants, a signifier that has been criticised by immoderate quality rights groups.

Later connected Wednesday, Trump's "border tsar" Tom Homan said the existing installation determination would beryllium expanded and tally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

He said the migrants could beryllium transported determination straight aft being intercepted astatine oversea by the US Coast Guard, and that the "highest" detention standards would beryllium applied.

It is unclear however overmuch the installation volition outgo oregon erstwhile it would beryllium completed.

Cuba's authorities swiftly condemned the plan, accusing the US of torture and amerciable detention connected "occupied" land.

Trump's announcement came arsenic helium signed the alleged Laken Riley Act into law, which requires undocumented immigrants who are arrested for theft oregon convulsive crimes to beryllium held successful jailhouse pending trial.

The bill, named aft a Georgia nursing pupil who was murdered past twelvemonth by a Venezuelan migrant, was approved by Congress past week, an aboriginal legislative triumph for the administration.

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At a signing ceremonial successful the East Room of the White House, Trump said the caller Guantanamo enforcement bid would instruct the departments of defence and homeland information to "begin preparing" the 30,000-bed facility.

"Some of them are truthful atrocious we don't adjacent spot the countries to clasp them, due to the fact that we don't privation them coming back," helium said of migrants. "So we're going to nonstop them to Guantanamo... it's a pugnacious spot to get out."

According to Trump, the installation volition treble the US capableness to clasp undocumented migrants.

The US has already been utilizing a installation successful Guantanamo - known arsenic the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center (GMOC) - for decades and done assorted administrations, some Republican and Democrat.

In a 2024 report, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) accused the authorities of secretly holding migrants determination successful "inhumane" conditions indefinitely aft detaining them astatine sea.

The GMOC has principally housed migrants picked up astatine oversea and was precocious the taxable of a Freedom of Information petition by the American Civil Liberties Union for the disclosure of records astir the site.

The Biden Administration responded that it "is not a detention installation and nary of the migrants determination are detained".

The Trump administration, however, says the planned expanded installation is precise overmuch intended arsenic a detention centre.

It volition reportedly inquire Congress to money the enlargement of the existing detention installation arsenic portion of a spending measure Republicans are moving to assemble.

When asked by reporters astatine the White House, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said lone that the wealth would beryllium allotted done "reconciliation and appropriations".

The subject situation connected Guantanamo has, for decades, held detainees taken into US custody aft the 9/11 attacks connected the US successful 2001.

At its highest it held hundreds of prisoners, and respective Democratic presidents including Barack Obama person vowed to adjacent it. There are 15 prisoners presently being held there.

News of the facility's enlargement was met with swift condemnation by the Cuban government, which has agelong considered Guantanamo Bay to beryllium "occupied" and has denounced the beingness of a US naval basal connected the land ever since Fidel Castro swept to powerfulness successful 1959.

"In enactment act of brutality, the caller authorities of the US has announced it volition incarcerate, astatine the naval basal astatine Guantanamo, located successful illegally occupied Cuban territory, thousands of forcibly expulsed migrants, who volition beryllium located adjacent known prisons of torture and amerciable detention," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote connected X.

The Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, said the announcement showed "contempt for the quality information and planetary law".