The Controversial Plan Unveiled
The Trump administration is planning to dramatically ramp up sending undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay starting this week, with at least 9,000 people being vetted for transfer, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
That would be an exponential increase from the roughly 500 migrants who have been held for short periods at the base since February and a major step toward realizing a plan President Donald Trump announced in January to use the facility to hold as many as 30,000 migrants.
Reasons and Reactions
The transfers to Guantanamo could start as soon as Wednesday, the documents state. The expectation is that the detainees would be at the facility temporarily before being deported to their countries of origin.
The official reason for the transfers is to free up bed space at detention facilities on domestic American soil, but the use of the notorious facility, which has long housed terrorism suspects, would also send another signal aimed at deterring illegal immigration to the United States.
The plans have come together only in the last few days and could still change, the documents say. But the Department of Homeland Security may not notify the countries of the individuals affected in advance, according to the documents.
International Concerns
Some 800 Europeans — including one Austrian, 100 Romanians and 170 Russians — are being considered for the transfers, according to one of the documents. That element of the plan has alarmed some U.S. diplomats, who note that most European countries are American allies that are cooperative in taking back deportees and that there’s no need to send the people to Guantanamo.
State Department officials who deal with Europe are trying to persuade DHS to abandon the plan.
Legal Challenges and Public Backlash
The plan also comes amid intensifying legal efforts to block the administration from using Guantanamo Bay to house immigrant detainees altogether. A federal class-action lawsuit pending in Washington indicates that there are roughly 70 immigrant detainees currently held there and facing “punitive” conditions, such as insufficient food, weekly changes of clothes and rodent infestation.
“The government has identified no legitimate purpose that is served by holding immigrant detainees at Guantanamo, rather than at detention facilities inside the United States,” ACLU attorneys argue in the lawsuit.
Future Uncertainties
It is not clear how long people newly sent to Guantanamo would stay there before being sent to their home countries.
During the peak of the war on terror, the U.S. held 780 people at the Guantanamo Bay facility. Pentagon officials were shocked by Trump’s order in January to house some 30,000 people there.
The 45 square mile naval base, which the U.S. has leased since 1903, held 178 migrants in February, before the Trump administration abruptly transferred the Venezuelans from the facility that month.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
