It’s part of a much broader overhaul of immigration policy, with the administration conducting high-profile arrests in New York, Chicago and Denver of those convicted of serious crimes. But Trump has also vowed the largest deportation in US history, declaring a national emergency at the southern border, ordering thousands of additional troops to assist with enforcement and cutting off access to asylum.
The control tower is seen through the razor wire inside the Camp VI detention compound which has housed foreign prisoners since 2002, at Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, in Cuba.Credit: AP
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it is likely that personnel from DHS will be responsible for the migrants themselves. It is unclear how the facility will be funded.
On Tuesday, the US military said that it would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants at Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado.
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The reaction to Trump’s move as swift.
Trump’s order “sends a clear message: 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,” said Vince Warren, the executive director of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group that since the September 11 attacks has represented dozens of men detained at the base. The decision “should horrify us all,” his statement said.
In Cuba, President Miguel Díaz-Canel deemed the decision “an act of brutality” on X and described the base as “located in illegally occupied #Cuba territory.” The US has leased Guantanamo from Cuba for more than a century but Havana opposes the lease and typically rejects the nominal US rent payments.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on X, “The US government’s decision to imprison migrants at the Guantanamo Naval Base, in an enclave where it created torture and indefinite detention centres, shows contempt for the human condition and international law.”
Amnesty International echoed the sentiment, writing on X that the base “has been the sire of torture, indefinite detention without charge or trial and other unlawful practices by the US government.” It added Trump should use his authority to finally close it instead.
The decisions come on top of US military deportation flights and the deployment of just over 1600 active-duty troops to the US border with Mexico following Trump’s emergency declaration on immigration last week.
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The administration on Tuesday also cancelled former president Joe Biden’s extension of Temporary Protected Status for 600,000 Venezuelans already in the US. The 18-month extension of TPS would have shielded Venezuelan migrants from being sent back to their country and allowed them to work legally in the US. The Biden administration announced the extension days before leaving office.
“We stopped that,” Noem said on Fox News. “We signed an executive order within the Department of Homeland Security that we are not going to follow through on what they did to tie our hands.”
The TPS program was expanded aggressively under Biden, who used it to shield people from countries seen as unstable, such as Haiti, El Salvador and Ukraine. Trump’s decision to revoke the extension for Venezuelans was reported earlier by The New York Times.
In the last several years, Venezuelans have ranked among the largest groups of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border without authorisation to ask for asylum. While the TPS program for the South American country initially enjoyed broad support, it later became a target of Republicans who argued that it has been granted too liberally and acts as a draw to migrants.
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Florida, Texas and New York are home to the largest population of individuals with TPS, with about half the total recipients coming from Venezuela. Patricia Andrade, of Miami-based non-profit Raíces Venezolanas (Venezuelan Roots), has been advising TPS holders to apply for other visas and alternative immigration options.
“Many of those who received TPS have already opted for asylum or an immigrant visa, but others are still waiting for these new visas,” she said. “These are the people we are concerned about.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s budget office has rescinded an order to freeze spending on federal loans and grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country.
The memo, which was issued Monday by the Office of Management and Budget, had frightened states, schools and organisations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington.
Administration officials said the pause was necessary to review whether spending aligned with Trump’s executive orders on issues like climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
But on Wednesday, they sent out a two-sentence notice rescinding the original memo. The reversal was the latest sign that even with unified control of Washington, Trump’s plans to dramatically and rapidly reshape the government has limits.
A district judge had earlier blocked the order until at least Monday afternoon.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “This action should effectively end the court case and allow the government to focus on enforcing the president’s orders on controlling federal spending.”