Trump plan to open migrant detention centre at Guantánamo Bay an ‘act of brutality’, Cuban president says
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the latest news from US politics.
First up, the Cuban president has described President Trump’s announcement of plans for a migrant detention facility at Guantánamo Bay as an “act of brutality”.
Writing on X, Miguel Díaz-Canel said the move would place people deported from the US “next to well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention”.
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order instructing officials to prepare a facility capable of holding 30,000 people at the naval base, which over the past two decades has been used primarily to hold suspects accused of terrorism-related offences, with few ever charged or convicted.
Trump said the new facility would be used to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people”.
Stay with us for more on that announcement and all the day’s developments.
Key events
Here’s the full text of that post from the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, condemning President Trump’s announcement of plans for a migrant detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.
“In an act of brutality, the new US government announces that it will imprison thousands of migrants at the Guantanamo Naval Base, located in illegally occupied #Cuba territory, and forcibly expel them, placing them next to the well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention,” he wrote on X.
The country’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, said the base was in “illegally occupied #Cuba territory outside the jurisdiction of US courts” and showed “contempt for the human condition and international law”.
En acto de brutalidad, nuevo gobierno de EEUU anuncia encarcelamiento en Base Naval en Guantánamo, ubicada en territorio de #Cuba ilegalmente ocupado, de miles de migrantes que expulsa forzosamente, a los que ubicará junto a las conocidas cárceles de tortura y detención ilegal.
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) January 29, 2025
What has Trump announced about Guantánamo Bay?
As part of his plans to reduce illegal migration to the US, President Trump has ordered the creation of a new detention facility capable of holding 30,000 people at Guantánamo Bay.
He said the centre would be used to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people”.
“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.”
Guantánamo Bay is best-known as the site of a US naval base on a coastal strip of land in southeastern Cuba that was leased by the US under a treaty in 1903.
A military prison set up on the base in the wake of the 11 September attacks has since been used to hold suspects accused of terrorism-related offences, with few ever charged or convicted.
Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden both tried to close the prison but were stopped by Congress.
An existing facility, separate from the prison, is already used by the US to detain migrants intercepted at sea, although it does not appear in public government records and details have only recently surfaced.
As of February 2024, four people were being held at the facility, the New York Times reported, citing the department of homeland security.
Trump plan to open migrant detention centre at Guantánamo Bay an ‘act of brutality’, Cuban president says
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the latest news from US politics.
First up, the Cuban president has described President Trump’s announcement of plans for a migrant detention facility at Guantánamo Bay as an “act of brutality”.
Writing on X, Miguel Díaz-Canel said the move would place people deported from the US “next to well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention”.
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order instructing officials to prepare a facility capable of holding 30,000 people at the naval base, which over the past two decades has been used primarily to hold suspects accused of terrorism-related offences, with few ever charged or convicted.
Trump said the new facility would be used to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people”.
Stay with us for more on that announcement and all the day’s developments.
Article by:Source: Christy Cooney
