Trump to build mass detention camp for deportees at Guantánamo Bay
The Washington Post (archive.ph)
By Nick Miroff and Dan Lamothe
2025-01-29 20:50:48GMT
A control tower is seen through the razor wire inside the Camp VI detention facility at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba on April 17, 2019. (Alex Brandon/AP)
President Donald Trump said he will order the construction of a mass detention camp that can hold 30,000 deportees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, outlining plans Wednesday for the largest U.S. facility of its kind.
Speaking at the White House before signing the Laken Riley Act, a bill that is expected to expand the number of immigrant detainees held in U.S. custody for minor property crimes, Trump said the massive camp would “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people” and be “a tough place to get out of.”
“We even don’t trust other countries to hold them, and we don’t want them coming back, so we’re going to send them out to Guantánamo,” Trump said. “This will double our capacity immediately.”
As Trump rushes to try to deport “millions” of migrants, one obstacle U.S. authorities face is that some countries block or limit U.S. deportation flights. Trump said he would overcome their opposition.
“They’re going to all take them back, and they’re going to like it, too,” he said to laughter.
The base in eastern Cuba has previously been used by U.S. authorities to hold rafters intercepted at sea while attempting to reach the United States. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration created a maximum-security facility for terrorism suspects and enemy fighters that became notorious after detainees and attorneys denounced torture and rights violations by U.S. interrogators.
The base has periodically surfaced as a possible overflow site for migrants detained along the U.S. southern border during migration surges, such as the one Trump faced in 2019 when record numbers of Central American families crossed into the United States.
The base is generally viewed as a location of last resort, however, given its isolated setting and limited infrastructure.
Earlier Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem revoked a Biden administration attempt to extend temporary protections for 600,000 Venezuelans. The government of Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro does not allow ICE to send deportation flights. The man convicted of killing Riley, a Georgia nursing student whose name is on the legislation Trump signed, was a migrant from Venezuela who was not deported despite accumulating a criminal record in the United States before the attack.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida), a Trump ally, said in a social media post that Trump is negotiating an agreement with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to accept deported members of Venezuela’s “Tren de Aragua” gang.
Bukele has used military troops to round up tens of thousands of gang members and others with suspected ties, jailing them in a newly built prison, the largest in Central America, that has become a showcase for his firm-handed rule.
“Tren de Aragua gang members may soon be sharing maximum security jail cells with MS-13 gang members in El Salvador,” Salazar wrote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit El Salvador this week, and Trump has ordered his administration to relaunch agreements — canceled under President Joe Biden — that allow U.S. immigration authorities to ship asylum seekers to other nations designated “safe.”
Trump officials have ramped up immigration arrests across the United States since the president took office, and the campaign is quickly maxing out U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity.
In Colorado, where teams of ICE officers and federal agents are making arrests in the Denver metro area, a Space Force base will serve as a temporary detention center for immigrants facing deportation, Department of Defense officials said Wednesday.
In a statement, military officials said they would provide facilities at Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora for ICE “to stage and process criminal aliens.” The site will be operated by ICE officials and other federal law enforcement agencies, not the U.S. military, according to U.S. Northern Command.
Trump has ordered the Pentagon to take on a larger role in U.S. border security and immigration enforcement. Military officials are sending 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and have prepared to send 10,000. Deportation flights to Guatemala, Colombia and Ecuador in C-17s have departed from border areas, loaded with recent migrants caught attempting to enter the United States.
The facility Trump described in Guantánamo Bay would potentially leave immigrant detainees with even less access to consular and legal services than they currently have in U.S. immigration jails.
ICE has the capacity to hold about 40,000 detainees nationwide across a network of private jails and county facilities where the agency rents beds. Those facilities are nearly full, ICE officials say, and the agency has taken thousands of detainees into custody since Trump took office and launched a mass deportation campaign.
The use of military bases has raised concerns among ICE officials and immigrant advocates regarding the use of barracks that do not meet detention and safety standards for secure facilities.
The Washington Post (archive.ph)
By Nick Miroff and Dan Lamothe
2025-01-29 20:50:48GMT
A control tower is seen through the razor wire inside the Camp VI detention facility at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba on April 17, 2019. (Alex Brandon/AP)
President Donald Trump said he will order the construction of a mass detention camp that can hold 30,000 deportees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, outlining plans Wednesday for the largest U.S. facility of its kind.
Speaking at the White House before signing the Laken Riley Act, a bill that is expected to expand the number of immigrant detainees held in U.S. custody for minor property crimes, Trump said the massive camp would “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people” and be “a tough place to get out of.”
“We even don’t trust other countries to hold them, and we don’t want them coming back, so we’re going to send them out to Guantánamo,” Trump said. “This will double our capacity immediately.”
As Trump rushes to try to deport “millions” of migrants, one obstacle U.S. authorities face is that some countries block or limit U.S. deportation flights. Trump said he would overcome their opposition.
“They’re going to all take them back, and they’re going to like it, too,” he said to laughter.
The base in eastern Cuba has previously been used by U.S. authorities to hold rafters intercepted at sea while attempting to reach the United States. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration created a maximum-security facility for terrorism suspects and enemy fighters that became notorious after detainees and attorneys denounced torture and rights violations by U.S. interrogators.
The base has periodically surfaced as a possible overflow site for migrants detained along the U.S. southern border during migration surges, such as the one Trump faced in 2019 when record numbers of Central American families crossed into the United States.
The base is generally viewed as a location of last resort, however, given its isolated setting and limited infrastructure.
Earlier Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem revoked a Biden administration attempt to extend temporary protections for 600,000 Venezuelans. The government of Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro does not allow ICE to send deportation flights. The man convicted of killing Riley, a Georgia nursing student whose name is on the legislation Trump signed, was a migrant from Venezuela who was not deported despite accumulating a criminal record in the United States before the attack.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida), a Trump ally, said in a social media post that Trump is negotiating an agreement with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to accept deported members of Venezuela’s “Tren de Aragua” gang.
Bukele has used military troops to round up tens of thousands of gang members and others with suspected ties, jailing them in a newly built prison, the largest in Central America, that has become a showcase for his firm-handed rule.
“Tren de Aragua gang members may soon be sharing maximum security jail cells with MS-13 gang members in El Salvador,” Salazar wrote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit El Salvador this week, and Trump has ordered his administration to relaunch agreements — canceled under President Joe Biden — that allow U.S. immigration authorities to ship asylum seekers to other nations designated “safe.”
Trump officials have ramped up immigration arrests across the United States since the president took office, and the campaign is quickly maxing out U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity.
In Colorado, where teams of ICE officers and federal agents are making arrests in the Denver metro area, a Space Force base will serve as a temporary detention center for immigrants facing deportation, Department of Defense officials said Wednesday.
In a statement, military officials said they would provide facilities at Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora for ICE “to stage and process criminal aliens.” The site will be operated by ICE officials and other federal law enforcement agencies, not the U.S. military, according to U.S. Northern Command.
Trump has ordered the Pentagon to take on a larger role in U.S. border security and immigration enforcement. Military officials are sending 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and have prepared to send 10,000. Deportation flights to Guatemala, Colombia and Ecuador in C-17s have departed from border areas, loaded with recent migrants caught attempting to enter the United States.
The facility Trump described in Guantánamo Bay would potentially leave immigrant detainees with even less access to consular and legal services than they currently have in U.S. immigration jails.
ICE has the capacity to hold about 40,000 detainees nationwide across a network of private jails and county facilities where the agency rents beds. Those facilities are nearly full, ICE officials say, and the agency has taken thousands of detainees into custody since Trump took office and launched a mass deportation campaign.
The use of military bases has raised concerns among ICE officials and immigrant advocates regarding the use of barracks that do not meet detention and safety standards for secure facilities.
