As part of his effort to restore national sovereignty over the borders of the United States, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the expansion to full capacity of the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay. The expansion, he wrote, “will provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”
At a press conference, President Trump stated, “We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens who threaten the American people. Some of them are so bad that we don’t even trust the countries [they’re from] to hold them, because we don’t want them to come back, so we’re going to send them out to Guantánamo.”
The migrant detention center at Guantánamo Bay operates separately from the military’s detention center that houses terrorists. Since the 1990’s the migrant center has been used principally to hold Haitians and Cubans picked up at sea. The facility has also been employed for regional humanitarian relief and disaster assistance.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the executive order concerning Guantánamo builds on previous actions by President Trump to secure the U.S. border and deport criminal illegal aliens from the interior of the country.
“We know we have an issue with detention space here in the interior. ... The President feels it [the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay] is an appropriate place. Taxpayers are already funding it. The space is there. Why not use it? The Secretary of Defense is working on that as we speak.”
In a television interview, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called Guantánamo “the perfect place” for the intended purpose. He said, “This is a temporary transit, which is already the mission of Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, where we can plus-up thousands — and tens of thousands, if necessary — to humanely move illegals out of our country where they do not belong [and] back to the countries where they came from in proper process."
Defense Secretary Hegseth declared, “We’ve said, ‘Enough is enough. They’re going home.’ So, Guantánamo Bay is a perfect transit point to temporarily house the worst of the worst until we move them back to their home countries, who, as President Trump has made it very clear, better be prepared to take them robustly and soon.”