Guantánamo and Trump’s new “extraordinary rendition” program for migrants

Migrants from 26 nations are now held at Guantánamo, with 26, including a UK citizen, named as having criminal convictions. Are they really criminals & does Trump want to deport them to 3rd countries?

A composite image of some of the Venezuelan migrants sent to Guantánamo in February, in photos made publicly available by the Department of Homeland Security.

My latest article on my website, As Trump Holds 72 Migrants at Guantánamo From 26 Countries Including the UK, What Is His Long-Term Plan?, is my detailed report about the disturbing news that, in recent weeks, around 60 migrants, from 26 countries including the UK, have been flown to Guantánamo, bringing the total number held at present to 72.

This seems to be a revival of the use of detention facilities on the naval base, which began with the arrival of 178 Venezuelans in February, but then tailed off after legal challenges, and after the administration was embarrassed by research establishing that, although they were all described as dangerous gang members, this was demonstrably untrue.

In a new twist, seeking to overcome these earlier embarrassments, the Department of Homeland Security has published a list naming 26 of these men, and alleging that all of them, including the British national, have been convicted of serious crimes, although, via an internet search, I was unable to verify any of these claims.

What the administration’s intention is remains unclear, but two options seem probable. Sending men with criminal convictions to Guantánamo (if these claims are true) may enable the administration to claim that it can hold them without charge or trial, replicating the model used in the existing “war on terror” prison, or it may be a prominent way to deport them to third countries, as recently happened when eight men from a variety of countries, all allegedly with criminal convictions, were sent to an unknown fate in war-torn South Sudan.

Drawing analogies with the “extraordinary rendition” program of the Bush administration, and the often flawed resettlements of Guantánamo prisoners in third countries under Obama and Biden, I examine a recent and commendable New York Times investigation into the 58 countries that administration officials have approached, or want to approach, regarding taking in migrants who are not their own nationals.

I also discuss the seven countries who have already agreed, and raise the alarm about the threat of the worst abuses of the “war on terror” being revived under Trump and his senior officials, who seem particularly motivated not to safely repatriate migrants, but to defy protections against torture or even death by sending them to unsafe destinations where any rights they should have will be unenforceable.

I also sound a similar alarm about the increasing expansion of unaccountable hit squads “disappearing” people on the US mainland, and the creation of new detention facilities, reminiscent of Guantánamo, with “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida as the first example, and highlight the very real prospect that, without ferocious resistance, the $175 billion allocated to ICE in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will lead to a horrendous police state expansion of “disappearances” and gulags across the entire country.

As I state in my conclusion, “Resistance is necessary, by all means available.”

Please support my work if you can

Please consider supporting my work if you appreciate it, as I am a reader-funded journalist and activist, and entirely dependent on your generosity. If you can’t afford a paid subscription here (just $8 a month, or $2 a week), you can make a one-off donation via Paypal or via Stripe, where I’ve just established a new donation page.