
Donald Trump has a new passion on which to spend a few minutes of his microscopic attention span. At a press event yesterday, he announced he plans to open a concentration camp to hold as many as 30,0000 deportees, or anyone else he’s mad at, at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Trump said the facility would be used to imprison the most dangerous baddest terrible criminal aliens, though if the scheme is actually launched, the most obvious use will be for holding those whose home countries won’t take back anyone deported from the US, like Venezuela, China, and Cuba itself.
Here’s video that you can completely skip past if you don’t want to hear that voice.
Trump framed it as a matter of Gettin’ Tough in the most manly and badass way possible:
“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo 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.”
We were unaware that there were that many superpowered mutants needing confinement, really. But rather than this being a matter of other countries refusing to take back deportees, it’s actually about how the Great Man will keep Americans safe, unlike that monster Kamala Harris, a known member of both MS-13 and ISIS (like the disclaimer on the video says, this statement has not been fact-checked).
Trump announced the potential policy, whatever form it actually ends up taking, at a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act, another Get Tough measure. That law will force ICE to imprison migrants arrested — not necessarily convicted, or even charged — for theft, including shoplifting. Critics have pointed out that since ICE has limited space for housing prisoners, the law may overwhelm existing facilities, so perhaps — just spitballing here — the concentration camp at Gitmo will be used to house those convicted of more serious crimes while stateside detention beds are dedicated to people arrested for shoplifting.
Actual details on what the Guantánamo operation would entail or what the criteria would be for sending deportees there weren’t made available, largely because this appears to be another policy Trump simply pulled out of his ass. But Defense Secretary (ugh, sigh, vomit uncontrollably, then black-out) Pete Hegseth was sober enough to say on Fox News last night that the remote Navy base outside US territory “is a perfect spot” for housing tens of thousands of people the US doesn’t know what to do with otherwise:
“Move them off to Guantánamo Bay, where they can be safely maintained until they are deported to their final location, their country of origin,” Hegseth said on Fox News. “We know we can execute it, and the Defense Department is prepared to do everything we can.”
At least as long as your definition of “perfect” includes spots where everything must be shipped in at enormous cost by air or sea. Great idea, and thrifty, too.
No, nobody’s saying how any of it would be paid for. We don’t really need air traffic controllers, do we?
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem (barf again) told CNN that “there might be some resources that could be established for the worst of the worst at Guantánamo Bay,” which translates to damned if she knows what any of this is about, either.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s latest weird penile penal fantasy came as a complete surprise to the people who’ll be expected to make it happen, if it does, as NBC News reports:
The Guantánamo announcement caught many officials at the Pentagon off-guard, according to five defense officials.
One official said the Guantánamo mission will be a DHS mission. It is unclear whether the military will be involved, but the Pentagon has no orders or guidance from the White House beyond the memo, the official said.
The officials said they hadn’t received any details on the scope or duration of the concentration camp plans, but did say there aren’t currently any upgrades or expansions planned at the base. One official said that in fact, “We’ve been ramping down this mission.”
We assume the official was then about to say, but didn’t, that this is entirely consistent with Donald Trump’s long-held love of torture as a concept, so really the official wasn’t surprised. But since the official never said it, we will, the end.
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if a one-time donation is better for your budget, we certainly won’t freeze it in some feeble attempt to connect with current news.
We can't look away. This is going to transition into a concentration camp, and then as we all know with the slapdash nature of a President Klan Robe maladministration...the most sadistic people will be found and this will turn into a torture and then extermination camp.
Do not forget, this was warned about, and Americans chose this after being told directly.
Do not look away.
Shouldn't he rename it Camp America, at America Bay, before any further planning?