Press secretary says at least two deportation flights to Cuban base of undocumented immigrants ‘under way’

The Trump administration has begun flying undocumented immigrants from the US to a military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday.

Leavitt told Fox Business Network that at least two deportation flights were “under way”, but gave no further details.

Her comments, however, appeared to confirm reporting by the Wall Street Journal, citing an anonymous official with knowledge of the operation, that about a dozen immigrants were onboard one flight from Fort Bliss, Texas. The newspaper said an additional flight had departed on Monday.

CNN later reported one of the flights had “about nine or 10” people onboard who were detained in the US without valid immigration documents.

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
    221·
    11 days ago

    Sure would have been nice if Obama or Biden had actually closed Guantanamo Bay when they had the chance.

    I liked to find silver linings where I can, and what I’m hoping is that when the shambles of the American government finally get back into Democratic hands (or whatever opposition party replaces them, at this point) there will finally be a realization that actual for real change is needed. Democratic politicians have been just treading water for decades now.

      • IndustryStandard@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        1·
        11 days ago

        Yes Trump is expanding on the human rights violations Obama and Biden put in place.

        Take Trump’s order to construct a migrant detention centre in Guantánamo Bay – a space that has for years operated outside international law despite outcries and appeals for closure. Hundreds of prisoners were kept there under military law, often following rendition, disappearance and torture at CIA black sites. Trump’s proposal to detain tens of thousands of migrants there is an outrageous move, but it is not an aberration. He is building, literally, on what came before him.

        “Like many of Trump’s authoritarian attacks on human rights, this one has shameful precedents in US history,” Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told CNN. “Long before the second Bush administration used the facility to hold and abuse nearly 800 Muslim men and boys as part of its ‘war on terror’, the first Bush administration held Haitian refugees there to try to deny them their rights under international law.” The prison, in fact, currently houses detained migrants in a facility called the Migrant Operations Center. Last year, the Biden administration awarded a private contractor over $160m (£130m) to run the facility.

        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/donald-trump-american-exceptionalism-guantanamo-bay-imperialism-billionaires

      • jackeryjoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        11 days ago

        As much as I hate trump, and boy oh boy do I hate him and elon so much I refuse to even capitalize their names, this is something that Bush started, and then Obama and Biden (and ESPECIALLY OBAMA) had the golden opportunity to do something about during their terms, Obama could have shut it down in 09-10 specifically with the full backing of congress; and they both chose to do nothing and let it remain.

        So now we get humans rights violations being committed on migrants instead of just “terrorists”.