Source: Xinhua News Agency / Getty
President Donald Trump has announced plans to send tens of thousands of “criminal illegal aliens” to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, further demonizing other immigrants.
President Donald Trump announced that his administration plans to deport criminal aliens to the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba on Wednesday (Jan. 29) as he was signing the Laken Riley Act into law. “Some of them are so bad that we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re gonna send ’em out to Guantanamo,” he said to reporters gathered at the White House. “We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal aliens threatening the American people,” he added. The White House announced shortly afterward that Trump signed a presidential memorandum to that effect.
The Laken Riley Act is named after a nursing student from Georgia who was out for a run last February when she was attacked by a man named Jose Antonio Ibarra, who wound up killing her. Ibarra, a Venezuelan national, was found guilty in November of Riley’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison. The bill requires federal officials to detain any migrant charged with a crime such as assault or shoplifting. It also allows states’ attorney generals to sue the federal government for harm related to failures in immigration enforcement leading to the harm of people. The law received bipartisan support, with 46 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 12 in the Senate voting to pass the measure.
Newly-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth defended President Trump’s move in an interview on Fox News, calling Guantánamo Bay a “perfect spot” for those detainees. “We don’t want illegal criminals in the United States, not a minute longer than they have to be,” he said on Jesse Watters Primetime. “Move them off to Guantánamo Bay, where they can be safely maintained until they are deported to their final location, their country of origin.” The United States has leased land from Cuba for over a century, but the Cuban government has rejected the nominal payments sent out to it. Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, called the new move “an act of brutality.”
Politicians and immigration advocates worldwide have also blasted Trump’s memorandum. “Trump’s order [sends] a clear message … Migrants and asylum seekers are being cast as the new terrorist threat, deserving to be discarded in an island prison, removed from legal and social services and supporters,” Vincent Warren, executive director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.
Trump Aims To Send “Worst Criminal Aliens” To Guantánamo Bay
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