US President Donald Trump mentioned Wednesday he deliberate to detain 30,000 “legal unlawful aliens” on the infamous Guantanamo Bay army jail, used for holding terrorism suspects for the reason that 9/11 assaults.
Trump made the shock announcement as he signed a invoice permitting the pre-trial detention of undocumented migrants charged with theft and violent crime-named after a US scholar killed by a Venezuelan immigrant.
He mentioned he was signing an government order instructing the Pentagon and the Homeland Safety division to “start making ready the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Trump mentioned on the White Home.
“We have now 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst legal unlawful aliens threatening the American folks. A few of them are so unhealthy we do not even belief the international locations to carry them, as a result of we do not need them coming again,” Trump mentioned.
Calling Guantanamo a “robust place to get out of,” Trump mentioned the measures introduced on Wednesday would “carry us one step nearer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities as soon as and for all.”
As Trump indicators the primary legislation of his second administration, the Laken Riley Act, let’s take a more in-depth take a look at the Guantanamo Bay army prison-its function, historical past, and significance.
What’s the historical past of Guantanamo?
In accordance with The Guardian, Guantanamo Bay army jail was opened in January 2002 on a US naval base on a coastal spit of land in southeastern Cuba, leased from Havana below a treaty courting again to 1903.
The detention facility was arrange after the 11 September 2001 assaults below the administration of then-president George W. Bush to cope with prisoners who had been termed “enemy combatants” and denied many US authorized rights.
Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden each sought to shut the power, however Congress has opposed efforts to shutter Guantanamo, and it stays open to today.
Obama’s administration gave up on efforts to carry trials in New York and place long-term detainees in an empty jail in Illinois within the face of livid native opposition.
Also Read | Laken Riley Act: Trump 2.0’s First Law That Targets Illegal Immigrants In US
Have migrants ever been detained at Guantanamo?
The US has detained migrants at Guantánamo for many years in a separate space. From 2020-2023, 37 migrants had been held, however numbers might rise below Trump’s intensified crackdown on unlawful immigration.
Are there nonetheless prisoners there?
Of 800 detainees held at Guantanamo since 2002, solely 15 stay. Three are eligible for switch, three for evaluation, seven face prices, and two are convicted. Biden’s administration just lately launched 11 Yemenis.
Most infamous detainees at Guantanamo Bay?
Guantanamo holds 9/11 plotters, together with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and USS Cole attacker Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Few detainees had been charged or convicted, with 55% discovered to not have dedicated hostile acts.
Is not the violation of human rights a critical concern?
Guantanamo faces world condemnation for human rights abuses. Critics name it a authorized anomaly harming U.S. popularity. Controversies embody force-feeding starvation strikers, deemed torture by opponents. At the very least 9 inmates have died there, seven by obvious suicide.
(With inputs from AFP)