Trump's controversial migrant plan spurs Guantanamo buildup
Trump has announced plans to send criminal migrants to Guantanamo Bay. The latest reports indicate that he has already dispatched additional forces to the site.
The White House has stated that, in accordance with President Donald Trump's prior promise, extra personnel have arrived at the Guantanamo base in Cuba to prepare for the accommodation of deported migrants who are to be detained there.
Trump intends to send migrants to Guantanamo
President Donald Trump signed an order on 29 January to establish a detention centre for dangerous criminal migrants at the Guantanamo military base in Cuba. Trump also enacted legislation requiring federal authorities to detain all immigrants accused of criminal activities.
As Trump stated during the Wednesday ceremony, he instructed the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to " begin building" a facility for migrants, accommodating 30,000 people, to detain the worst illegal criminal immigrants threatening Americans.
- Some of them are so bad we don't even trust the countries to hold them, because we don't want them coming back. So we're going to send them to Guantanamo... it's a tough place to get out - Trump declared.
What's currently in Guantanamo?
Since 2002, the Guantanamo base has operated as a detention centre for individuals suspected of terrorism, whom US authorities have been unable to charge formally. Previously, it served as a migrant centre, primarily for Cuban and Haitian refugees intercepted at sea. The legality of both the first and second centres has been questioned.
Alongside the Guantanamo order, Trump signed the first legislation of his second term, the Laken Riley Act. The law enacted by Trump - named after a student murdered by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela - mandates the indefinite detention by federal authorities under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of all immigrants accused of theft, including shoplifting, assaults on police officers, as well as acts causing injury or death to others, such as drink-driving. The regulations apply to immigrants residing in the USA both legally and illegally.
