Trump announces Gitmo migrant detention center

Jan. 30, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prepare a detention facility at Guantánamo Bay — a U.S. naval base in Cuba — that he said could be used to hold up to 30,000 immigrants deported from the U.S. He said the move would “double our capacity immediately,” adding that Guantánamo was a “tough place to get out of.” (New York Times)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement currently has detention capacity for about 40,000 immigrants facing deportation.

The new prison would be to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” Trump said yesterday. “Some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust the countries [of origin] to hold them because we don’t want them coming back,” he said. “So we’re going to send them out to Guantánamo. This will double our capacity immediately.”

It was not immediately clear how migrants will be housed, what kind of construction will be required and what the operational costs might be, notes the Washington Post.

The plan would actually involve enlarging an existing migrant facility at the U.S. base - which is separate from the high-security U.S. prison for foreign terrorism suspects, and has been used on occasion for decades, including to hold Haitians and Cubans picked up at sea, reports Reuters.

The secretive immigrant detention facility does not appear in public government reports, and details have only recently surfaced, reports the Guardian. Last September the New York Times reported that migrants in Guantanamo “exist in a form of legal limbo, confined to a military base that operates outside of standard American immigration laws. The situation has always been opaque, with little public information about what happens there.”

The International Refugee Assistance Project said in a 2024 report that detainees described unsanitary conditions, families with young children housed together with single adults, a lack of access to confidential phone calls, and the absence of educational services for children.

“Guantánamo 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 who once led the lawsuit over Haitian refugees being held at the site. (New York Times)

The U.S. has leased Guantanamo land from Cuba for more than a century. Cuba opposes the lease and typically rejects the nominal U.S. rent payments. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Trump wanting to ship immigrants to the island is “an act of brutality,” reports the Associated Press.

Trump made the initial announcement as he signed the Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes.

The move has several upsides for Trump’s migration goals, according to CNN: create badly needed space for mass detentions, serve as a deterrent to would-be migrants, and telegraph to Trump supporters he is honoring campaign promises.

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Panama Canal

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said he won’t discuss control of the Panama Canal in a meeting with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is set to visit on Saturday in his first official trip abroad. (Reuters)

U.S. Senators this week joined Trump in expressing alarm over China's role in the canal, including a Chinese company's work on a bridge across the canal, and said it poses risks to U.S. national security. The Panamanian government has vehemently denied ceding operation of the strategic waterway to China and insists it administers the canal fairly to all shipping, reports Reuters.

Panama’s conservative government is preparing a charm offensive to defuse tensions with the Trump administration over the Panama Canal, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Mulino administration plans to offer closer alignment to curb the flow of migrants and drugs to the U.S. while working to draw American investment to offset that of China.

Migration

• The U.S. Trump administration’s decision to freeze all foreign aid programs has had immediate impact on humanitarian operations in Latin America — the move could exacerbate violence in the region, and push still more people to migrate to the U.S., reports the Guardian.

• Trump's military deportation flight to Guatemala on Monday likely cost at least $4,675 per migrant, more than five times the $853 cost of a one-way first class ticket from El Paso, Texas, the departure point for the flight, reports Reuters.

Regional Relations

• “Despite other foreign-policy disagreements, a consensus is emerging among Republicans: The US must take an ultra-hawkish approach to Latin America,” writes Guillaume Long in The Nation.

• Trump still plans to make good on his promise to issue tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Saturday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said yesterday. (Reuters)

• Trump’s nominee to run the commerce department said yesterday that Canada and Mexico can U.S. tariffs slated to start on Saturday if they move to close their borders to fentanyl. (Guardian)

• While the threat of tariffs worked to force Colombia to take deportation flights earlier this week, experts say the case of Mexico and Canada would involve much more damage to the U.S. economy. “Nearly 30% of all U.S. imports hail from Canada and Mexico, amplifying the risk that tariffs could fuel inflation and undermine Trump’s campaign promises to get prices under control,” reports the Associated Press.

• Mexico will send a letter to Google to question its decision to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico for users of Google Maps in the US. (Guardian)

El Salvador

• El Salvador’s Congress ratified a constitutional reform yesterday that will make it easier and faster to make constitutional changes — which from now on will require only a three-fourths ratification by lawmakers. Critics say it is another step in President Nayib Bukele’s consolidation of power, reports the Associated Press.

Haiti

• Haiti's transitional council president Leslie Voltaire said yesterday that the country’s long-awaited general elections would be held in November of this year. Haiti has lacked elected representatives since January 2023 and has not held elections since 2016, reports Reuters.

Chile

• Chile’s Congress passed a pension reform long-sought by the government, though it is only a partial win for President Gabriel Boric, who was forced to make significant concessions, according to Bloomberg. “The reform represents the best attempt at reaching middle ground on arguably the most contentious problem gripping Chile.”