Trump orders 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay

United States President Donald Trump has signed a presidential memorandum to set up a 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay to detain "high-priority criminal aliens." 

The Guantanamo Bay facility, which has so far been used to hold terrorists, will now also house illegal immigrants with criminal records.

The signing took place on Wednesday, with Trump directing the Departments of Defence and Homeland Security to prepare the facility.

According to the memorandum, he ordered the expansion of the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to accommodate "high-priority criminal aliens" and address related enforcement needs.

“Most people don't even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people," Trump said at a White House event.

"Some of them are so bad, we don't even trust their home countries to hold them. Because we don't want them coming back, so we're going to send them to Guantanamo,” he said.

“This will double our capacity immediately. It's a tough place to get out of. Today's signing brings us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all,” he added.

Trump has signed his first piece of legislation into law that permits the pre-trial detention of illegal migrants accused of theft, burglary or shoplifting.

The Laken Riley Act had earlier won bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. It is Trump's first piece of legislation since he took office on January 20.

“Under the law, I'm signing today, the Department of Homeland Security will be required to detain all illegal aliens who have been arrested for theft, burglary, larceny, shoplifting, assaulting a police officer, murder, or any crime that results in death or serious injury,” Trump said as he signed the Laken Riley Immigration Act into law on Wednesday.

“In addition, for the first time ever, this act gives state governments the ability to sue the federal government for immediate injunctive relief if any future administration ever again refuses to enforce the immigration laws of the United States like happened for four long years,” Trump said.

The Act is named after Laken Raley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.

She was “attacked, viciously assaulted, beaten, brutalized and murdered by an illegal alien gang member who was set loose into our country by the last administration,” Trump said.

Trump described it as a landmark act.

The bill came amid the president's promised crackdown on the border.

“This law restores common sense to our broken immigration system. Under President Trump, violent criminals and vicious gang members will no longer be released into American communities,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said the act undermines the power of the federal government.

“The legislation also gives state attorneys general the standing to sue federal immigration authorities for actions completely unrelated to stopping violent crime. The legislation would require federal courts to prioritise these cases to the greatest extent possible. This would rob federal judges of the ability to control their courtrooms and could grind their dockets to a halt,” Durbin said.

“These standing provisions would also undermine the supremacy of the federal government over immigration and border security, which is established by our Constitution,” he said.

“[These standing provisions] could also dramatically reduce legal immigration to our country. Because of the way this bill is drafted, the Department of State, under any administration, could be blocked from issuing any visas to nationals from a certain country, like India or China,” Durbin said on the Senate floor early this month.

The bill was passed by the House by 263-156 votes and the Senate by 64-35 votes.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Stop Illegal Reentry Act which would impose a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for any person who illegally enters the country with multiple convictions or a conviction for an aggravated felony.

With this, Trump has ramped up efforts to remove illegal immigrants from the country, a major poll promise.

He said the memorandum was issued to halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty. P

By Lalit K Jha in Washington, DC