U.S. President Donald Trump reacts to a reporter’s query from the Resolute Desk after signing an govt order to nominate the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on January 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Picture by CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Photos through AFP)
Bogotá, Colombia — President Donald Trump has mentioned he needs to ship 30,000 “felony unlawful aliens” to the infamous Guantanamo Bay US navy base in Cuba.
The location homes the jail the place lots of of terror suspects labeled “enemy combatants” have been held — many for years with out cost — after the 9/11 assaults. Some have been tortured.
Trump mentioned this week he had ordered the development of a detention middle there to “double our capability instantly” to carry undocumented migrants.
The plan has raised questions and considerations.
Is it new?
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Guantanamo Bay has for many years been used to carry Caribbean asylum seekers and refugees caught at sea. Migrants are held in a unique a part of the bottom than that used for terror suspects.
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Within the Nineties, it was used to deal with tens of 1000’s of Haitians and Cubans who fled crises of their homelands.
They have been accommodated in tent cities, many have been finally despatched dwelling after being held at Guantanamo for years.
Trump’s transfer would entail a big enlargement of what’s referred to as the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Heart (GMOC).
However Deepa Alagesan of the New York-based Worldwide Refugee Help Challenge (IRAP) says migrants are already being held “in inhuman situations, and increasing the power can be nothing in need of disastrous.”
In a report final September, the IRAP reported situations on the GMOC together with “undrinkable water and publicity to open sewage, insufficient education and medical care for kids, and collective punishment of detained Cuban and Haitian refugees.”
Is it authorized?
“A few of them are so dangerous that we don’t even belief the international locations to carry them as a result of we don’t need them coming again,” Trump mentioned of the migrants he plans to ship off to Guantanamo including it’s “a troublesome place to get out of.”
Invoice Frelick, refugee and migrants director at Human Rights Watch advised AFP that Trump’s intention seems to be “to detain individuals indefinitely.”
He defined there was leeway beneath home and worldwide legislation to detain migrants administratively for brief durations of time till they are often despatched again to their dwelling international locations.
In the event that they can’t be returned, “there isn’t any longer a reputable cause for the detention, and it turns into arbitrary,” mentioned Frelick.
Making issues worse, Guantanamo is a distant, closed navy base “which the US authorities has used to evade authorized protections and public scrutiny” up to now.
“When detention turns into extended and indefinite and untethered from correct oversight, it violates human rights and will quantity to torture,” mentioned Frelick.
The UN human rights workplace mentioned Friday that migrants ought to solely be detained “as a final resort. And solely in distinctive circumstances.”
Observers say migrants in Guantanamo would discover it onerous to entry authorized counsel.
Many could be reputable asylum seekers who’ve the best beneath US and worldwide legislation to stay and work in America whereas their purposes are thought of.
Is it mandatory?
Hundreds of undocumented migrants have been arrested since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, together with some accused of crimes.
An unknown quantity have been repatriated to Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and different international locations. Trump has vowed to expel “thousands and thousands.”
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) company at present has funding for 41,500 detainee beds, in keeping with the conservative Heritage Basis assume tank in Washington.
In a report this week, it mentioned US navy services reminiscent of Guantanamo “can play a central position within the administration of detention and deportation” — and have already got been used for this goal beneath earlier administrations together with that of Joe Biden.
The US leases the location holding the jail from Cuba beneath a treaty relationship again to 1903.
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The communist authorities in Havana considers it an unlawful occupation, however the US Division of State web site states the lease was the product of “worldwide settlement and treaty” and may solely be ended by mutual settlement.
