Guantanamo deportations: What’s Trump’s plan? Why is it controversial?
United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that seeks to repurpose Guantanamo Bay, a US prison in Cuba, into a detention centre for unauthorised immigrants.
About 11 million such immigrants live in the US, where the total population is 341 million, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center.
Debates about immigration have dominated US politics in recent years and formed a crucial part of the recent presidential election campaign. Trump has promised to carry out “the largest deportation in American history”.
Yet, until now, the facility has been used to house only those whom the US describes as “illegal enemy combatants” – not undocumented migrants.
Here is more about Trump’s plans for Guantanamo Bay, a notorious camp where US military officials have previously been accused of using torture tactics against inmates:
What has Trump said about Guantanamo Bay?
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order titled, “Expanding Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to Full Capacity”.
This order directs the US secretaries of defence and homeland security to work on expanding Guantanamo Bay “to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States”.
Trump has said that 30,000 beds will be available to house “the worst” undocumented immigrants, meaning those with criminal records, saying his administration “didn’t trust” their countries of origin to hold them.
The order additionally states: “This memorandum is issued in order to halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty.”
Trump announced this action while signing the first piece of legislation of his second presidential term, the Laken Riley Act, which also seeks to expel unauthorised immigrants.
He said: “Today’s signings bring us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all.”
This is one of many instances in which Trump has linked unauthorised migrants with crime in the US. However, a 2023 study by economists at US universities analysed incarceration rates and census data from 1870 to 2020 and found that immigrants were consistently less likely to be imprisoned than people born in the US.
What is the Laken Riley Act?
The Laken Riley Act is a bill that was passed by the Republican-majority Congress and signed into law on Wednesday by Trump, also a Republican.
The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to “detain certain non-US nationals (aliens under federal law) who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting”.
