President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a memo that sets in motion preparations for a facility to house thousands of migrants at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which he said was an effort to “halt the border invasion.”
“I hereby direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States,” the memo to the Pentagon and DHS states.
Trump previewed the directive during a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure, saying he would “instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000 person migrant facility at Guantánamo Bay.”
“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back,” Trump added.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during a CNN interview Wednesday that “there might be some resources that could be established for the worst of the worst at Guantánamo Bay,” and that Trump and DHS were assessing those resources.
Trump has made other efforts to crack down on migrants living in the U.S. illegally.
During his first week in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the border that could permit the Defense Department to deploy the military and the National Guard to the border. He has also signed a slew of executive orders intended to shutdown illegal immigration at the southern border and to deport millions of people who crossed into the United States illegally.
The president’s Guantanamo announcement caught many officials at the Pentagon off guard, according to five defense officials.
One official said the Guantanamo mission will be a Homeland Security Department mission. It’s unclear if the military will be involved, but the Pentagon currently has no orders or guidance from the White House beyond the memo, the official said.
Officials who were surprised by Trump’s announcement said they don’t know how many beds for migrants are currently at Guantanamo or whether this would be a short- or long-term mission. They said there are currently no plans to upgrade or change the military facilities there.
“We’ve been ramping down this mission,” one of the officials said of Guantanamo Bay.
There is a separate Migrant Operations Center there that could be expanded — with military construction help — and run by the Department of Homeland Security.
