Memo shows U.S. can send migrants without criminal records to Guantanamo, despite Trump's promise to hold "the worst"
Source: CBS News
Updated on: April 16, 2025 / 12:08 PM EDT
A government memo obtained by CBS News shows the Trump administration created broad rules outlining which migrants can be held at Guantanamo Bay, allowing officials to send non-criminal detainees there despite a vow to hold "the worst" offenders at the naval base. As part of his aggressive crackdown on immigration, President Trump in late January directed officials to convert facilities inside the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into holding sites for migrants living in the country illegally.
At the time, Mr. Trump said "the worst" migrants would be held at the base, directing officials to make space for "high-priority criminal aliens." But a previously undisclosed agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense indicates that the Trump administration gave officials wide-ranging discretion to decide who to send to Guantanamo Bay, enacting criteria not predicated on the severity of detainees' criminal history or conduct.
In fact, the memo does not mention any criminality assessment. [Read the full memo at the bottom of this story.] Instead, the agreement, signed on March 7 by top DHS and Pentagon officials, says the departments agreed to use the Guantanamo base to detain migrants with final deportation orders who have "a nexus to a transnational criminal organization (TCO) or criminal drug activity."
Officials defined "nexus" in broad terms. A nexus can be satisfied, the memo says, if migrants with final deportation orders are part of a transnational criminal group or if they paid one "to be smuggled into the United States." The latter condition could be used to describe many of the migrants and asylum-seekers who have illegally crossed the U.S. southern border, as criminal groups in Mexico largely control the illicit movement of people and drugs there.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guantanamo-trump-migrants-without-criminal-records/
Full headline: Memo shows U.S. can send migrants without criminal records to Guantanamo, despite Trump's promise to hold "the worst" there
Link to MEMO (PDF viewer at bottom of site) - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guantanamo-trump-migrants-without-criminal-records/#734f2975-1311-441a-a2eb-b8956315912b
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There is too much power in the hands of the President.
