US Flies Detained Migrants To Notorious Prison, Guantanamo
The first US flights carrying detained migrants to America’s notorious Guantanamo military base in Cuba were underway Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on illegal migration, the White House said.
Guantanamo is primarily known as a detention center for suspects accused of terrorism-related offenses, but the base also has a history of being used to hold migrants, and Trump last week ordered the preparation of a 30,000-person “migrant facility” there.
“Today, the first flights from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox Business.
Trump has launched what his second administration is casting as a major effort to combat illegal migration, trumpeting immigration raids, arrests and deportations on military aircraft.
The Guantanamo prison was opened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and has been used to indefinitely hold detainees seized during the wars and other operations that followed.
The conditions there have prompted consistent outcry from rights groups, and UN experts have condemned it as a site of “unparalleled notoriety.”
Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden both sought to close the facility, but Congress has opposed efforts to shutter Guantanamo and it remains open to this day.
It still holds 15 people incarcerated for militant activity or terrorism-related offenses, but migrants will be detained in a separate part of the base.
According to US Southern Command, there are some 300 American military personnel at Guantanamo supporting “illegal alien holding operations.”
