President Trump on Wednesday announced he’ll order the opening of a detention center at Guantanamo Detention to house up to 30,000 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally.
Trump made the announcement just before signing the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes such as theft.
“We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” Trump said.
“We don’t want them coming back so we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo,” he continued.
There were still 15 prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay as of the Pentagon’s Jan. 6 update, but a separate facility will hold immigrants.
Holding immigrants in facilities is by far the largest cost of the deportation process.
ICE only has about 38,000 people in detention — prioritizing noncitizens the border patrol arrested at the Southwest border and noncitizens with criminal histories, according to ICE’s annual report.
A backlog of 3.7 million cases in immigration courts, where immigrants are entitled to make their case to stay in the country, means detained immigrants could wait months, if not years, for their hearing.
To hold more people from a raid surge would require a mass building project of “soft detention” centers, or temporary facilities, to house people.
The Trump administration will have to award private contracts to build such detention centers, and offer health care and education to detainees.
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