In response to Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is “an ideal place” the place the Trump administration may maintain as much as 30,000 migrants whereas they await being deported from the United States to their house international locations.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum directing the Protection Division and the Division of Homeland Safety to arrange the bottom to carry what he had earlier mentioned is likely to be 30,000 migrants described as “high-priority prison aliens unlawfully current in the US.”
Hegseth, who at one time served as a junior Military officer on the detention facility at Guantanamo that housed enemy combatants from the conflict on terror, defined that deported migrants wouldn’t be housed at that location.
The Naval Base of Guantanamo in Cuba, Sept. 11, 2002.
Adalberto Roque/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
“That is one a part of Guantanamo Bay. The opposite a part of Guantanamo Bay, Will, is a naval station the place it has lengthy been, for many years, a mission of that naval station to offer for migrants and refugees and resettlement,” Hegseth mentioned in a stay interview on Fox Information’ “The Will Cain Present”
During the last week, U.S. navy plane have been been used to hold out deportation flights, taking deported migrants again to their house international locations. The navy flights are along with the chartered flights that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has undertaken for years. Nevertheless, the tempo of these flights might be sluggish because the U.S. has to safe commitments from international locations that they may conform to take again their residents.
“We would like elsewhere to carry them safely within the interim,” Hegseth mentioned. “Guantanamo Bay, Will, is an ideal place.”
Hegseth described how the bottom could possibly be used to accommodate deportees on their strategy to their house international locations or a 3rd nation “and it is taking somewhat time to maneuver with that course of and with the paperwork”
He mentioned that as that course of drags on, it’s “higher they be held at a protected location like Guantanamo Bay, which is supposed and constructed for migrants. Meant and constructed to maintain that away from the American individuals as they’re processed correctly, to the place they got here from.”
“It is a non permanent transit which is already the mission of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, the place we are able to plus up hundreds and tens of hundreds, if needed, to humanely transfer illegals out of our nation the place they don’t belong, again to the international locations the place they got here from in correct course of,” he added.
Hegseth described the grounds of the Navy base’s golf course as a spot that might probably home as many as 6,000 migrants.
“So this can be a plan in motion, however not in motion as a result of we’re behind, however as a result of we’re ramping up for the chance to increase mass deportations, as a result of President Trump is lifeless critical about getting unlawful criminals out of our nation,” Hegseth mentioned. “And the DOD just isn’t solely prepared to, he is proud to companion with DHS to defend the sovereignty of our southern border and advance that mission.”