Illegals from which countries are sent to Guantanamo: there are now more guards than detainees

The Trump administration is using the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to hold dozens of foreigners from 26 countries, including those with serious criminal convictions, according to CBS News.

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As part of the Trump administration’s expanded efforts to turn Guantanamo Bay into an immigration detention center, authorities have moved detainees from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe there. The base initially housed mostly Spanish-speaking migrants from Latin America awaiting deportation.

Department of Homeland Security officials on July 8 released a complete list of citizens detained at Guantanamo, along with the names and criminal histories of more than two dozen of them. The list shows that Guantanamo holds detainees from every continent except Antarctica.

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According to the Department of Homeland Security, those detained include citizens of Brazil, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Russia, Somalia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the United Kingdom, Venezuela and Vietnam.

The men, whose names were provided by Department of Homeland Security officials, have criminal convictions for murder, sex crimes (including against children), child pornography, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, drug trafficking and robbery. All have final orders of deportation, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.

Those with criminal records are classified as “high-risk” detainees and are held at Camp IV, the prison complex at Guantanamo. Those with no or few serious convictions are considered “low-risk” detainees and are housed at the Migrant Processing Center.

Guantanamo holds 72 immigration detainees, 58 of whom are classified as high-risk and 14 as low-risk, according to two U.S. officials.

The administration began using the base to hold detained illegal immigrants in early February.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security public affairs assistant Tricia McLaughlin said the detention of aliens with criminal records at Guantanamo demonstrates that President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are using “every tool available to get criminal illegal aliens off our streets and out of our country.”

“Whether it’s CECOT, Alcatraz Alligators, Guantanamo Bay or another detention center, these dangerous criminals will not be allowed to terrorize U.S. citizens,” McLaughlin said, referring to the El Salvador prison where the U.S. has sent more than 200 Venezuelan deportees and a prison the Florida government has set up in the Everglades.

The use of Guantanamo Bay for immigration detention, which is intended to be civil rather than punitive, has raised concerns among some Democrats and human rights advocates. The base has been at the center of controversy for two decades over its indefinite detention of prisoners who have been tortured and abused.

Democrats also decry the cost of turning Guantanamo into an immigration detention center. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) told Congress in May that it had spent $8 million on transporting detainees to Guantanamo as of April 21.

The personnel involved in housing immigration detainees at the base include more than 520 Department of Defense personnel and about 130 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel, according to a DoD spokesperson. The base already held 663 detained migrants, far short of the 30 Trump had claimed, the spokesperson said.

Human rights activists consider the detention of immigrants at Guantanamo a punitive and illegal practice. Federal law does not allow the government to hold people awaiting deportation outside of U.S. territory, and the base is located in Cuba. The U.S. has considered itself a leaseholder for decades, but the current Cuban government has long refused to charge the U.S. and is demanding the base be returned.

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Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is seeking to block the transfers to Guantanamo Bay, said the Trump administration's efforts are "more theatrical than law enforcement or sound policy."

“Every previous administration has understood that Congress did not give the green light to holding immigrants in foreign countries,” he concluded. “And that is true regardless of whether the immigrant has a criminal record.”

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