President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he would instruct the Pentagon to prepare Guantanamo Bay to detain 30,000 “criminal illegal aliens.”
“Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Trump said. “Most people don’t even know about it.”
It was later learned that Trump signed a presidential memorandum, not an executive order, on the matter.
He said there are 30,000 beds at Guantanamo to house the detainees who pose a threat to the American public, adding that putting them there will ensure they do not come back.
“Some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust their countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back,” Trump said. “We’re going to send them to Guantanamo.”
He added, “It’s a tough place to get out of.”
The president said the move will bring the U.S. one step closer to “eradicating the scourge” of migrant crime in communities, once and for all.
He also called on Congress to provide full funding for the complete and total restoration of U.S. borders and financial support to remove record numbers of illegal aliens.
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Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called Trump’s move to send 30,000 migrants to Guantanamo an “act of brutality.”
“In an act of brutality, the new US government announces the imprisonment at the Guantanamo Naval Base, located in illegally occupied territory [Cuba], of thousands of migrants that it forcibly expels, and will place them next to the well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention,” he said in a translated post on X.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News’ Will Cain on the “Will Cain Show” on Wednesday that Guantanamo Bay is already being used to house illegal immigrants, particularly the worst of the worst.
She confirmed Trump’s mission to use resources to expand the capacity at Guantanamo, and said her department will make sure resources are placed there to ensure there is enough space to get criminal illegal aliens out of the U.S.
Also appearing on Cain’s show was his former colleague, and now Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who was stationed at the facility from 2004 to 2005.
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Hegseth explained that Gitmo is the perfect option for rounding up tens of thousands of illegal aliens and sending them back to their countries of origin with proper processing.
He said it is better to be held in a safe location like Guantanamo Bay, which was built for this.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration rolled out a social media thread highlighting the latest apprehensions conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the president’s immigration crackdown became a reality.
“969 TOTAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ARRESTS by ICE were recorded yesterday, January 27, 2025,” the White House shared on X. “HERE ARE SOME OF THE WORST.”
The post shows nine different illegal immigrants who have already been convicted of crimes, such as child rape, or who have alleged links to gangs and terrorist organizations and other serious crimes.
Trump’s 2024 campaign promised to curb illegal immigration that skyrocketed under the Biden administration. The 47th president promised to deport migrants, including those who had long rap sheets or ties to gangs or terrorist organizations.
On the first day of his second term, Trump issued ten executive orders aimed at overhauling U.S. immigration law and policy. After less than a week back in the Oval Office, Trump said he is keeping his promises.
His executive orders included sealing the U.S. asylum system for those without proper documents, discharging the military with deporting immigration violators and tasking ICE with removing migrants.
Since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, armed federal immigration agents have swept cities in the first deportation raids.Â
Over the last week, the Department of Homeland Security said “law enforcement officials have removed and returned 7,300 illegal aliens.”
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Emma Colton contributed to this report.
