President Donald Trump’s administration confirmed on Tuesday that the “first flights” of illegal immigrants being sent to Guantanamo Bay were “underway.”
During a Tuesday interview with Fox Business host Stuart Varney, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump is not messing around, and he’s no longer going to allow America to be a dumping ground for illegal criminals from nations all over this world.”
Leavitt told Fox Business that El Salvador has agreed to repatriation flights for its own citizens and has also agreed to allow “illegal criminals from other nations” to be sent to prisons in El Salvador.
“Venezuela as well has agreed to repatriation flights, and Colombia also agreed to cooperate with the repatriation of illegal Colombian nationals that we have found in the interior of our country,” Leavitt said. “And I can also confirm that today the first flights from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway.”
According to Fox News, Leavitt explained that by sending illegal immigrants to Guantanamo Bay, Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth are “already delivering on this promise to utilize that capacity at Gitmo for illegal criminals who have broken our nation’s immigration laws and then have further committed heinous crimes against lawful American citizens here at home.”
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Last Wednesday, Trump announced an executive order instructing the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to “begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay.” Trump explained that the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, also referred to as Gitmo, will be used by the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”
“Some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back so we’re going to send them to Guantanamo,” Trump said. “This will double our capacity immediately.”
In his executive order, Trump ordered the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to “expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity” to house “high-priority criminal aliens” who have illegally entered the United States.