The Trump administration has begun flying undocumented migrants from the US to a army detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, the White Home press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, mentioned on Tuesday.
Leavitt advised Fox Enterprise Community that no less than two deportation flights had been “underneath method”, however gave no additional particulars.
Her feedback, nevertheless, appeared to verify reporting by the Wall Avenue Journal, citing an nameless official with data of the operation, that a few dozen migrants had been onboard one flight from Fort Bliss, Texas. The newspaper mentioned a further flight had taken place on Monday.
CNN later reported one of many flights had “about 9 or 10” folks onboard who had been detained within the US with out legitimate immigration paperwork.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) referred a request for remark from the Guardian to the homeland safety division, which didn’t instantly reply.
“President Trump is just not messing round, and he’s now not going to permit America to be a dumping floor for unlawful criminals from nations throughout this world,” Leavitt advised Fox.
“As we speak, the primary flights from america to Guantánamo Bay with unlawful migrants are underneath method.”
Donald Trump final week signed an government order to arrange an enormous detention camp on the navy base at Guantánamo that he mentioned may home as much as 30,000 folks deported from the US.
“A few of them are so dangerous, we don’t even belief the international locations [of origin] to carry them as a result of we don’t need them coming again,” he mentioned. “So we’re going to ship them out to Guantánamo. It will double our capability instantly.”
The information of the primary flights, containing deportees of unknown nationality, comes a day after El Salvador supplied to simply accept undocumented migrants from any nation – and even incarcerated US residents. The announcement by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, adopted a go to by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio.
Leavitt advised Fox that Trump was decided to finish what he has beforehand referred to as “the largest deportation effort in American historical past”, of 15 million to twenty million folks, for which he has mentioned he would interact the army to assist obtain it.
“El Salvador has not disagreed to the repatriation of [only] their very own residents but in addition unlawful criminals from different nations who will then be despatched to their prisons,” she mentioned.
“Venezuela as properly has agreed to repatriation flights, and Colombia additionally agreed to cooperate with the repatriation of unlawful Colombian nationals that now we have discovered within the inside of our nation.”
Rubio praised El Salvador’s willingness to simply accept deportees. “No nation’s ever made a proposal of friendship equivalent to this. [It is] probably the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory settlement wherever on this planet,” he mentioned.
Immigration advocates, in the meantime, have expressed concern over the legality of deporting these within the US illegally to international locations they don’t seem to be from.
“Clearly, we’ll have to review it on our finish; there are clearly legalities concerned. We’ve got a structure, now we have all kinds of issues,” Rubio mentioned on Monday.
In keeping with the Wall Avenue Journal, the US naval base at Guantánamo is supplied to carry about 120 migrants.
Identified to critics as “America’s gulag”, the ability has housed a number of folks accused of plotting the 11 September 2001 terrorist assaults within the US, in addition to others deemed to be “enemy combatants”. Some have been detained for years with out trial.
Trump’s plan to make use of it to detain civilians deported from the US additional demonizes immigrants, advocates have mentioned.
“That is political theater and a part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to color immigrants as threats in america … and fan anti-immigrant sentiment,” Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee safety at Human Rights First, advised the Guardian.
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