Trump Says He Is Opening 30,000 Beds at Guantánamo Bay for Detained Migrants
‘Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back,’ the president announced.
President Trump will try to open a 30,000-bed facility at the American-controlled detention camp at Guantánamo Bay on the southern coast of Cuba, he announced on Wednesday. One part of the prison was used to process migrants back in the 1990s before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The president made his announcement from the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, just before he signed the Laken Riley Act.
“Today, I am also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantánamo Bay,” the president announced. “We have 30,000 beds in Guántanamo [Bay] to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back.”
It is just the latest move the 47th president has made to curtail illegal immigration. He has deployed the military to the southern border to enforce sections of the border wall, reinstated his so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy, and is trying to end birthright citizenship, which has long been protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The Guantánamo Bay detention facility currently has only a few hundred beds and just 15 detainees, all of whom are being held on allegations that they have participated in terrorist plots.
It is unclear exactly where Mr. Trump plans to build his 30,000-bed facility on the small military base. In the 1990s, one now-shuttered part of the facility — Camp X-Ray — was used to process Cuban migrants who wished to flee their country and move to America. Between 1994 and the end of the decade, more than 100,000 Cubans were processed through Camp X-Ray to move to America, though the facility has since been closed.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarification about where the beds will be located.
According to a New York Times report from last year, some migrants are still being processed at the military installation, but not on the scale that Mr. Trump now envisions. The Times found that a small, two-story building was being used to detain those migrants who tried to reach America by sea.
