The administration of US President Donald Trump is preparing to send thousands of people, including hundreds of Europeans, who are in the US illegally to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The US government could begin their transfer as early as this week and does not plan to notify the governments of the detainees' home countries, The Washington Post (WP) reported, citing US officials with knowledge of the plans.
The foreigners the administration is considering transferring to Guantanamo Bay come from a number of European allies, including Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine. Many also come from other parts of the world, such as Haiti.
The move could begin as early as Wednesday, with 9,000 people scheduled to undergo medical screenings to determine whether they are healthy enough to be held at Guantanamo Bay. That number would be a significant increase from the roughly 500 migrants who have been held at the base for short periods since February, Politico reported. It would also be a significant step toward Trump’s plan to hold up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay, which the president announced in January.
Preparation for large-scale deportations
According to WP, newly transferred migrants to Guantanamo would be detained temporarily before being deported to their countries of origin.
Trump administration officials say sending more migrants to Guantanamo is necessary to free up capacity in U.S. detention facilities, which are overcrowded by immigration raids that Trump has ramped up as part of his pledge to launch the largest deportation campaign in American history. The infamous facility is intended to deter foreigners from entering the United States illegally, the WP said.
The government is considering moving about 800 Europeans, including one Austrian, 100 Romanians and 170 Russians, the WP reports, citing a document shared with the newspaper by US officials. This point in the plan has raised concerns among some US diplomats, who point out that most European countries are US allies and usually cooperate in accepting their deported citizens. Therefore, they say that placing these people at Guantanamo is not necessary.
The US prison facility known as Guantanamo Bay on the coast of Cuba was established in 2002 under the administration of then US President George W. Bush as part of the war on terror following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The US uses Guantanamo Bay to detain foreigners it suspects of terrorism.
In September of last year, the New York Times (NYT) obtained government documents showing that the US had also been using the military base for decades to detain migrants stopped at sea, but they were held separately from those facing terrorism charges.
