Migrants to be Shipped to Guantanamo, El Salvadorian Prisons
While Trump sends migrants to Guantanamo, President Bukele agreed to house migrants and U.S. citizens in El Salvador’s prisons
As the Trump administration sends migrants from the U.S. to be detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, questions about the legalities of such a move continue to rise. At the top of the list are questions about what measures the administration has taken to ensure migrants receive the due process they are entitled to under the U.S. Constitution. At this point, as with many other executive orders, it appears as though this hasn’t been thought through.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has worked out a deal with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to house detained migrants and U.S. citizens in El Salvadorian prisons – another move that creates many legal questions. At issue are the rights of migrants already in detention and those of U.S. citizens who are imprisoned. Incarcerating them outside the U.S. legal system presents a dubious proposition, at best.
“Multiple agreements were struck to fight the waves of illegal mass migration currently destabilizing the entire region,” said Spokesperson Tammy Bruce via a readout issued by the Department of State. “President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully. He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country. And in an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country, President Bukele offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals, including U.S. citizens and legal residents.”
Bukele, who has appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and has always supported Donald Trump and his far-right policies, is the only Latin American leader (so far) to go out of his way to appease the administration. While Bukele is credited with getting crime under control in El Salvador, he has been criticized for violating the human rights of gang members, their families, and innocent civilians rounded up during sweeps of neighborhoods.
Considering the Trump administration is currently trying to employ a similar process, it should come as no surprise that Bukele was so easily convinced to participate in current United States policies under a wanna-be dictator. What this means for migrants and U.S. citizens Rubio and his white-nationalist-centered Department of State are hell-bent on targeting remains to be seen, but we should expect this move to be challenged in court.
“First, obviously, he continues with full cooperation on the returning of Salvadorans who find themselves illegally in the United States and welcome them back home, and that’s already existing and that will continue,” said Marco Rubio via a separate statement. “But second, he has agreed to accept for deportation any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal from any nationality, be they MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, and house them in his jails. And third, he has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizenship and legal residents. No country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this.”
What we could expect in Guantanamo is similar to what we have seen before when housing Haitian immigrants in occupied Cuba, who have been held and prescreened there since 1991. Many reports of inhumane treatment and torture have been a prominent occurrence over the succeeding decades. Journalists at CNN are reporting that migrants are being flown from the U.S.-Mexico border to Guantanamo, which is a departure from Trump’s assertions that the base would be used to hold “illegal aliens with the worst criminal records.”
Refugees International condemned the move to house migrants on the military base.
“Guantanamo’s Migrant Operations Center, which the Trump administration is sending marines to expand, is truly a black box that no non-governmental organization has been allowed to visit. Over the past decade, a small number of interdicted asylum seekers have been brought to Guantanamo, determined to be refugees, held indefinitely under poor conditions, and barred from resettlement in the United States. It has never been used to hold immigrants who were present in the United States.
“The administration’s claim that there is a migrant “invasion” is unfounded, and its mislabeling immigrants as “terrorists” is diversionary – and neither makes offshore detention lawful. Members of Congress should investigate the move as a misuse of military assets. Setting up an American gulag in the Caribbean in response to forced displacement in the Americas is a shameful low in U.S. history.”
Indefinitely detaining people accused of crimes on foreign soil became normalized after 9/11, but many questions remain about the legality of doing so. Legal representation, access to evidence and information, and prosecuting someone under U.S. law – while denying them certain rights guaranteed by the same law – seems to be something that may backfire. Either the Trump administration hasn’t thought this through, or it has some loopholes it plans to exploit with an ultra-conservative Supreme Court seemingly on its side. Only time will tell.
While Elon Musk and his cohorts raid every institution in the United States, including the U.S. Treasury, one thing is certain: we are witnessing fascism in all its forms. Meanwhile, by the time they stop Musk’s raids or Trump’s plans to house migrants and citizens on foreign soil, it may be too late for thousands of people who are thought of as subhuman just for being brown.
I’m a freelance journalist. Find my work at Latino Rebels, Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, and more. I’m also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support my work, become a paid subscriber or donate via Venmo, PayPal, or CashApp.