Did a leak derail plans to transfer 9,000 migrants to Guantánamo?
Trump is still using Guantánamo to hold migrants, as the “war on terror” prisoners are overlooked, although a plan to send 9,000 migrants there, including 800 Europeans, seems to have been derailed.
The headline for Politico’s June 10 article, overlaid with my text.
In my latest article on my website, Did a Leak Stop Trump From Sending 9,000 Migrants to Guantánamo, Including 800 Europeans?, I examine a recent story that the Trump administration was planning to send 9,000 new migrants to Guantánamo, including 800 Europeans.
The claim was dismissed as “fake news” by the White House, but it seems to me that the officials who leaked the documents did so in an effort to derail the proposals by enraging European allies, which seems to have been successful.
Although the remaining 15 “war on terror” prisoners at Guantánamo have largely been forgotten, the detention facilities at the naval base — both the “war on terror” prison and an unrelated Migrant Operations Centre, used since the 1990s to house migrants intercepted at sea — have been cynically used by Donald Trump in the “war on migrants” he declared when he took office five months ago.
While Trump’s interest in Guantánamo has largely waned, migrants are still being sent there, with the latest including a group of Haitians who were subsequently deported back to Haiti, on the same day that the story broke about the 9,000 migrants plan.
That news was the impetus for a letter to Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth by 14 lawmakers, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, calling for "an immediate halt to the use of Guantánamo for migrant detention and for the permanent closure of the base’s two detention facilities."
As they also stated, “These detention facilities at Guantánamo should have been closed years ago. It is unacceptable that not only are they still operational, but they are being repurposed for yet another generation of unjust detention. As long as the United States maintains a detention facility at Guantánamo, future administrations will continue to use it to try and deprive non-citizens of meaningful access to the courts and the full protections of US and international law.”
I also reflected on Guantánamo’s sordid history, and its still tainted present, to mark the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which was yesterday.
The “First Wednesday” global vigils for Guantánamo’s closure on July 2
This coming Wednesday, July 2, the latest coordinated global vigils for Guantánamo’s closure will be taking place at around ten locations across the US and around the world, as they have been since I instigated them, with the support of fellow activists, two and a half years ago.
Do join us if you can. For inspiration, check out the photos and my report from last month’s vigils here.
As I explained, “I can’t express sufficiently my admiration for the small but big-hearted global family of activists who come out together once a month to defy the collective amnesia that, for the most part, has engulfed Guantánamo throughout most of the 23 wretched years of its existence.”
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