Migrants held at Guantanamo are not all 'the worst of the worst'

Fifteen new immigration detainees arrived at the notorious Guantanamo Bay in Cuba from Texas on February 23 after the first batch of 178 had been cleared from the premises – 177 returned to their homeland of Venezuela and one back to the US.

President Trump announced January 29 that he was signing an executive order to instruct the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to prepare the Guantanamo Bay migrant facility in Cuba to house as many as 30,000 migrants deported from the US.

“We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” the President said.

“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,” Trump added, indicating that not all Guantanamo inmates would be temporary.

So far those sent to Guantanamo have been seen to disembark the aircrafts in chains and handcuffs. But, according to CBS news, there are "low-risk" migrant detainees among those classed by Trump as "the worst of the worst." They have either committed no crime at all or a low  level offence.

Back in January, Trump went on to say that sending migrants to Guantanamo would “double our capacity immediately,” and made the point that it was a “tough place to get out of,” according to The New York Times.

The US naval base in Guantanamo is separate from the high-security US prison for foreign terrorism suspects, reports Reuters.

It is already a detention center for migrants that has been used off and on for several decades, particularly as a place to hold Haitians and Cubans rescued at sea.

Matthew Bartlett, Republican strategist and former Trump advisor who resigned due to the January 6 Capitol riots, told the BBC that the move had come as a shock.

Referring to Trump as “the ultimate disruptor,” he said “This really is a last resort. It seems as if the President is now pushing this forward as something of a potential plan.”

“It seems to be nothing more than projection but with President Trump we have seen how projection can become a reality.”

As many as 40,000 migrants have been farmed out to private detention centers and local jails as official detention sites have filled up.

A facility with a capacity for 30,000 would ease Trump’s capacity problem and make it possible to maintain the hectic pace of migrant arrests.

According to figures obtained by NBC News, 41% of the 4,422 undocumented migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first two weeks of February had no criminal history—more than 1,800 people.

Sweeping arrests have taken place across the US since Trump came to power, including in New York, LA and Chicago, terrifying pockets of migrants, some of whom have chosen to keep a low-profile and are avoiding school and work, the BBC reports.

According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, no undocumented migrant “is off the table.”

Trump’s Guantanamo solution has been met with outrage, with Cuba condemning the initiative as an “act of brutality.”

Politicians, jurors and human rights organizations have also expressed horror that Trump would go to such extreme lengths to fulfill his campaign promise.

“Migrants and asylum seekers are being cast as the new terrorist threat, deserving to be discarded in an island prison, removed from legal and social services and supports,” Head of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Vincent Warren, told The New York Times.

“Guantanamo is a black hole designed to escape scrutiny and with a dark history of inhumane conditions. It is a transparent attempt to avoid legal oversight that will fail,” said Lucas Guttentag, a Justice Department official in the Biden administration.

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