Washington, DC – Donald Trump campaigned for president on mass deportation. He’s now taking his promise to Guantanamo Bay, where he is sending tens of thousands of migrants.
It’s a drastic move, even for Trump. Though he campaigned on expelling “bad hombres”, what is now happening is a chaotic and unclear displacement of immigrants, most of them Latin American.
Fear and uncertainty
Around a week into his second term, normally busy US city streets had become unusually quiet as word spread that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were rounding up migrants.Â
Some claims were confirmed, such as an incident in Chicago wherein ICE agents had approached a school, while other reports couldn’t be verified.
In any case, knowledge of the raids has created a chilling effect on the more than 10 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the US in addition to authorised residents, some of whom have reportedly been caught up in the chaotic sweeps.
Within days of taking office, Trump ordered 30,000 migrants to the US naval base in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, which gained worldwide notoriety after it was used as a detention facility for suspected “enemy combatants” in America’s post 9/11 war on terror.
“It is entirely unknown at this stage what legal authority, if any, the Trump administration has in transporting people to Guantanamo,” Hannah Flamm, interim senior director of policy with the International Refugee Assistance Project, told The New Arab.
The symbolism of Guantanamo
Guantanamo, often called GTMO or GITMO to differentiate the US naval base from the nearby Cuban town of Guantanamo, has become a thorn in the side of civil liberties advocates who see the continued use of the detention centre as going against the constitution and democratic norms.
It is perhaps because of this that Trump chose it as a destination for detained migrants, part of his ongoing shock and awe strategy to grab headlines as he boldly tests the limits of executive reach.
Guantanamo is not only controversial for its indefinite detention of uncharged terrorist suspects. The very existence of the naval base, established after the US helped Cuba gain independence from Spain, though not accepted by the current communist government, is an affront to one of the world’s most anti-American governments.
“No matter what, it is not clear if there is any legal authority to transport people to a military prison in Guantanamo. It is unclear on what legal grounds people could be taken to the migrant operations centre,” Hannah Flamm said, referring to the two different facilities at the US naval base.
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One is the infamous military prison used to indefinitely detain suspected terrorists and the other is specifically for migrants, which has been used to hold Haitians and Cubans intercepted at sea.
Given the high rate of deportations, which Trump is pushing ICE to accelerate, it seems that both facilities could be used, in addition to nearby tents for the overflow of detainees.
“I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but it’s hard to see that this could be legal,” Flamm said. “This is the latest iteration of a US administration using Guantanamo to evade the law.” Â Â
Worldwide response
The international condemnation of Trump’s deportation orders has been swift and largely consistent.
This week, Pope Francis took the unusual step of addressing the Trump administration’s migrant crackdown in a letter to US bishops. US “border czar” Tom Homan responded by saying that the Vatican, which has a wall, should focus on its own security.Â
Vatican City is a small autonomous enclave that doesn’t have the resources to host migrants on a mass scale. However, Pope Francis put his words into action when he hosted Syrian refugees at the Vatican in 2016 at the height of the refugee crisis resulting from the authoritarian crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
Latin American leaders have calmly pushed back, serving to highlight the chaos caused by the Trump administration.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called for calm and unity days after Trump’s inauguration, as he threatened not only deportations but also tariffs and ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed as the Gulf of America. The Mexican government also set up tents near the US border to assist deportees.
Colombia, on the other hand, seems to have already backed down following pressure from Trump. After initially sending back planes of deported migrants from the US, the government then agreed to accept migrants, apparently in exchange for avoiding US tariffs.
Response in the US
There has been widespread resistance across the country to Trump’s mass deportations. Last Monday, protests broke out in all 50 states over multiple Trump policies, including deportations. The national media coverage, however, was minimal, despite the large turnouts and major coverage in local news.
Other examples of domestic resistance have been seen in churches quietly sheltering migrants, schools and universities banning ICE on their campuses, and local and state governments refusing cooperation with federal arrests of migrants.
“Our university administration has been sending out stuff, saying don’t let ICE into the classroom,” Richard Groper, a lecturer in political science at California State University in Los Angeles, told TNA.Â
“We talk about it in class,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. A lot of people don’t think about it. When I talk about it, people say it can’t happen here.”
Though he hasn’t seen a major surge of resistance against Trump, he believes this could change once his honeymoon period is over and if his actions don’t yield any positive outcomes, other than drumming up support from his base.Â
J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told TNA he believes that its “quite remarkable that Trump was not exactly shy about his support for mass deportations during the campaign – and he broke nearly even with Harris when it came to the Latino vote and made gains with Asians”.
He said, “Those are two groups that I’ll be watching when it comes to the possible thermostatic reaction to Trump’s policies”.
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One thing to look out for, says Groper, is if Trump defies a constitutional or judicial order, something Trump has said he would not do, though acknowledged he would appeal. On Sunday, a federal judge blocked Trump from sending three Venezuelan migrants from the state of New Mexico to Guantanamo.
“Then we can say that this guy is actually going to defy a constitutional order and trying to seize authoritarian power,” Groper said.
For now, rights advocates say it is important to ascertain basic information about migrant deportations.
“At this stage, it is critical to obtain basic information of who is being sent there,” said Flamm. “It is imperative to obtain access to those individuals. They have a right to legal counsel, and there will be advocacy to prevent further unlawful transfers to Guantanamo and to defend the rights of those currently there.”
Brooke Anderson is The New Arab’s correspondent in Washington DC, covering US and international politics, business and culture.
Follow her on Twitter:Â @Brookethenews
