The Pentagon announced that 10 ‘high-threat’ individuals have arrived at Guantanamo Bay as part of Donald Trump’s effort to deport criminal illegal aliens.
It comes as Trump is deploying members of the Armed Forces to expand the capacity of a detention facility at the Cuba base.
‘U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking this measure to ensure the safe and secure detention of these individuals until they can be transported to their country of origin or other appropriate destination,’ the Pentagon said in a statement.
The United States Navy announced that its combat ship USS St. Louis was moored at the Guantanamo Bay naval station and that the crew was supporting the expansion.
Photographs showed members of the armed forces setting up army green tents and pounding large stakes into the ground to hold them up.
The first phase of the expansion is expected to increase the center’s capacity to 2,000, according to the Navy, with plans to expand it to fit 30,000 migrants.
Marines assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment also arrived in Guantanamo Bay on Sunday to prepare to expand the Migrant Operations Center.
The White House announced Tuesday that President Trump had sent the first flights of illegal migrants from the United States to Guantanamo Bay.
Sailors assigned to Freedom-variant littoral combat ship USS St. Louis (LCS 19) and Coast Guardsmen assigned to US Coast Guard District 7 erect expeditionary shelter tents
U.S. Navy sailors and Coast Guardsmen erect expeditionary shelter tents in support of the expansion of migrant detention at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Sailors assigned to the USS St. Louis (LCS 19) and Coast Guardsmen assigned to US Coast Guard District 7 erect expeditionary shelter tents
The United States is starting to fly detained migrants to America’s notorious Guantanamo military base in Cuba
‘Today, the first flights from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday.
The detention facility is widely known as the location for detained terrorism suspects in recent years, but the Trump administration has decided to expand it’s use for detaining migrants scheduled for deportation.
‘President Trump is not messing around and he’s no longer going to allow America be a dumping ground for illegal criminals from nations all over this world,’ Leavitt said.
Last week, Trump announced plans for his administration to detain as many as 30,000 high priority migrants with criminal records at the military base at Guantanamo Bay.
Legal experts stress that detainees at Guantanamo Bay will still have legal rights afforded to them by the Constitution, as the Supreme Court defended terror suspects right to habeas corpus and a lawyer.
‘The government’s view at that time was that Guantanamo was sort of outside the parameters of the U.S. Constitution, and whoever was there had no rights, whatever. And the Supreme Court rejected that,’ Eugene Fidell, Yale Law School military law expert noted.
Detained illegal migrants arrive at Guantanamo Bay
Detained illegal migrants arrive at Guantanamo Bay
Detained illegal migrants arrive at Guantanamo Bay
The first U.S. military aircraft to carry detained migrants to a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay
The first U.S. military aircraft to carry detained migrants to a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay
‘We don’t want them coming back, so we’re sending them to Guantanamo,’ he said at the White House last week.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told reporters the administration would expand the capacity of the facility as the military has planned to erect temporary tents.
‘We’re just going to expand upon that existing migrant center,’ Homan said.
Secretary Kristi Noem shared photos of some of the migrants arriving at the Guantanamo facility on Tuesday.
‘President Donald Trump has been very clear: Guantanamo Bay will hold the worst of the worst,’ she wrote on social media. ‘That starts today.’
