Trump says he’ll send migrants to Guantanamo Bay

Justin Baragona and Andrew Feinberg, The Independent

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade ended a Fox & Friends discussion on revoking Venezuelan migrants’ temporary protected status by asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem if she planned on housing immigrants in a prison facility most known for housing 9/11 terror suspects. Calling the Guantanamo Bay prison camp an “asset,” Noem said that the administration was “evaluating” that possibility but that it was ultimately President Donald Trump’s decision. Hours after the idea was floated on Trump’s favourite morning show, the president revealed that he was indeed going to use the infamous prison camp to house tens of thousands of migrants — once again showing the Trump-Fox feedback loop in real-time.

“Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defence and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Trump declared while signing the Laken Riley Act into law. “Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” he added. “Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back. so we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo. This will double our capacity immediately.”

The shocking revelation comes amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign that has already resulted in thousands of arrested immigrants, many of whom have no criminal record, Noem announced that she was revoking the Temporary Protected Status extension that had recently been granted to over 600,000 Venezuelan migrants. The protection is intended to assist people who have come to the United States and cannot safely return to their country of origin due to natural disasters, armed conflicts, or political upheaval. In the case of Venezuela, residents have fled the country as its economy has collapsed amid President Nicolás Maduro’s autocratic rule, which has also resulted in the stifling of political dissent.

The cancellation of the extension would likely cause fear and confusion among Venezuelan migrants, immigration advocates told The New York Times. “By taking this action, Secretary Noem is throwing over 600,000 into a state of ongoing bureaucratic limbo. People will no longer have any certainty as to whether they can stay in the country legally through the end of the year,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said. Fresh off joining her first ICE raid in which she referred to immigrants as “dirtbags,” Noem appeared on Fox & Friends on Tuesday to unveil her revocation of Venezuelans’ protected status, declaring that she was committed to deporting people who were in the United States illegally.

“We can’t say American citizens have to follow the law and people from other countries don’t have to. We choose laws. We put them in place. Congress has a chance to change the law. But until then, our job is to enforce it,” she stated. “And when you want to live in a country where everybody is treated the same and fairly and equally and has chance to live the American dream, so we understand some families have been here illegally and have been perpetuating that.”

Noem continued: “That is my job. We are going after those here illegally. We have to do due diligence and get resources through Congress. We are deporting dangerous individuals and fixing our system.”

Kilmeade then wondered what she would do with migrants from countries that “don’t want to take them back,” specifically referencing Cuba and Venezuela. “We got 607,000 Venezuelans here, what do we do?” Kilmeade added.