US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order instructing the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to establish a detention center for migrants at Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The planned 30,000-person facility will be used to "hold the most serious cases of criminal illegal aliens who threaten the American people," Trump said at the White House without giving further details, DPA reported.
Some of these migrants are "so bad that we don't even trust their countries to hold them because we don't want them to come back, and that's why we're going to send them to Guantanamo," the US president said.
The Guantanamo detention center is a US military prison on the territory of a naval base a U.S. base in Cuba established by the administration of former President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks to detain suspected Islamist terrorists.
At one point, the center held about 800 people, which was internationally condemned for denying prisoners their right to a fair trial and violating human rights.
In January 2022, independent experts mandated by the UN have recommended that the US close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where "human rights are routinely violated," notes Agence France-Presse.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has stripped Mark Milley, a retired Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of his access to classified information and personal security, Fox News reported, quoted by BNR.
The retired general is on very bad terms with President Donald Trump, whom he called a "fascist," notes AFP.
Mark Milley headed the US armed forces for 15 months during Trump's first presidential term. The general then held the position during the administration of Democrat Joe Biden. Milley was pardoned preemptively by the former US president to prevent prosecution against him.
Trump himself said that the military man had committed "treason", which in other times would have earned him a firing squad.
Last night, the Pentagon also announced that it had begun a procedure that could lead to the demotion of the army general.
On the day of Trump's inauguration, portraits of Milley, which were displayed in the corridors of the Pentagon, were also taken down.
Millie was included in a list of former high-ranking officials whose security was to be removed by order of Trump after his return to power less than two weeks ago.
The national security was also removed for Anthony Fauci, the long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the list also includes Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State during Trump's first term, the former national security adviser John Bolton, former special envoy for Iran Brian Hook.
These former government officials "are wealthy enough to hire their own private security guards", White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said on the subject.