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Boy, Donald Trump couldn't be more graphic in telegraphing the way he's planning to treat detained illegal immigrants, could he?
A little background first: starting in 2002, the U.S. sent prisoners from the disastrous Global War on Terror it launched in response to the 9/11 attacks, some already tortured at CIA "black sites" abroad, to a prison offshore of American justice at the U.S. military base in Guanta'namo Bay, Cuba. At one time, there were 790 inmates in that prison and, even today, despite president after president claiming (or implying) that he would close the prison, it's never quite been cleared of its war on terror inmates. After all these years, 15 of them still remain there.
Now, in the second age of Trump, more than 23 years after the 9/11 attacks, as TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino makes clear today, the war on terror is all too literally coming home. President Trump's" I had the urge to write "regime" here" administration has now sent the first of what could, in the end, be up to 30,000 illegal immigrants to that U.S. military base at Guanta'namo Bay. The initial group of them, reportedly 10 Venezuelan gang members (or maybe not), while not being put in the infamous prison with those 15 remaining detainees from the war on terror abroad, have indeed been incarcerated in a detention facility that once reportedly housed al-Qaeda terror suspects.
Such a reality gives "history repeats itself" grim new meaning, as the second era of Donald Trump begins in eye-opening fashion with a potentially bloodcurdling domestic war of terror. With that in mind, let Mazzarino take you into the world of Donald Trump's "immigrant problem." (Don't close your eyes!) Tom
The War on Terror Turns Inward
Guanta'namo, Donald Trump's "Immigrant Problem," and the Rest of Us
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for immigrants, particularly the non-white variety from south of our border. His statements that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of our country," coupled with Fox News reports on Hispanic-appearing migrants who commit crimes, leave little doubt about what he and his allies think of (non-white) immigrants and their contributions to this country.
So it didn't surprise me that he recently began to follow through on his own and his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leadership's earlier intentions (as far back as 2018) to detain immigrants -- including unaccompanied children -- at military posts. Earlier this month, the first deportation flight carried a few men from the American mainland to our naval base and Global War on Terror offshore prison site in Guanta'namo Bay, Cuba. Trump's spokesperson Karoline Leavitt referred to those migrants as "the worst criminal illegal aliens" and "the worst of the worst." The flight apparently included members of a gang from Venezuela. Yet troops had already been ordered to ready the base in Cuba to house some 30,000 immigrants -- a dramatic increase in its capacity -- in military tent encampments meant to supplement existing detention facilities there.
The move is part of President Trump's signature public policy initiative: to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without clear legal status. Some 40% of those Trump deems "illegal" and has targeted for deportation actually have some sort of official permission to be here, whether because they already have temporary protected status, a scheduled date in immigration court, or refugee or asylum status.
Since none of them wear their immigration status on their shirts (thankfully!), it might prove unnerving indeed how officers from DHS will be selecting people for interrogation and detention. (It's probably not the guy in front of you at Starbucks with a Scandinavian accent who just ordered a fancy drink.)
Everything from Ku Klux Klan flyers left in towns across the Midwest after the election to Trump's order removing the protected status of schools, healthcare facilities, and places of worship when it comes to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids paints a dire picture. We haven't seen profiling on this scale since the days after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, when the federal government ordered tens of thousands of men of Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent to register and be fingerprinted, subjecting them to increased surveillance and vigilante violence.
Since then, globally, the U.S. has detained hundreds of thousands of men (and, in some cases, boys) domestically and at that infamous prison in Guanta'namo Bay, many without the ability to challenge their detentions and without the Red Cross surveillance that international law grants them.
Given the way legal standards for the treatment of people detained at federal facilities have eroded over the last two and a half decades, what may happen to tens of thousands of migrants at incarceration centers like Guanta'namo in the years to come can only be a matter of grim speculation. However, one thing is clear: whatever the treatment of the "worst of the worst" at or near that infamous prison, now a recyclable holder for whoever is the enemy of the day, it will be hidden from public view.
My Backyard
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