Memo shows U.S. can send migrants with no criminal record to Guantanamo

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A authorities memo obtained by CBS News shows the Trump medication created wide rules outlining which migrants tin beryllium held at Guantanamo Bay, allowing officials to nonstop non-criminal detainees determination contempt a vow to clasp "the worst" offenders astatine the naval base.

As portion of his assertive crackdown connected immigration, President Trump successful precocious January directed officials to person facilities wrong the U.S. Naval Base astatine Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into holding sites for migrants surviving successful the state illegally. At the time, Mr. Trump said "the worst" migrants would beryllium held astatine the base, directing officials to marque abstraction for "high-priority transgression aliens."

But a antecedently undisclosed statement betwixt the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense indicates that the Trump medication gave officials wide-ranging discretion to determine who to nonstop to Guantanamo Bay, enacting criteria not predicated connected the severity of detainees' transgression past oregon conduct. In fact, the memo does not notation immoderate criminality assessment. [Read the afloat memo astatine the bottommost of this story.]

Instead, the agreement, signed connected March 7 by apical DHS and Pentagon officials, says the departments agreed to usage the Guantanamo basal to detain migrants with last deportation orders who person "a nexus to a transnational transgression enactment (TCO) oregon transgression cause activity."

Officials defined "nexus" successful wide terms. A nexus tin beryllium satisfied, the memo says, if migrants with last deportation orders are portion of a transnational transgression radical oregon if they paid 1 "to beryllium smuggled into the United States." The second information could beryllium utilized to picture galore of the migrants and asylum-seekers who person illegally crossed the U.S. confederate border, arsenic transgression groups successful Mexico mostly power the illicit question of radical and drugs there.

Migrants who overstayed a visa are not eligible to beryllium sent to Guantanamo Bay, the papers says. But if the quality of a migrant's introduction is unclear, the memo allows officials to presume that the idiosyncratic paid a transgression radical to participate the U.S. and to nonstop them to Guantanamo if they hail from a federation "where the preponderance of aliens from that state participate the United States successful that fashion."

The conditions for transferring migrants to Guantanamo, arsenic outlined successful the memo, look to beryllium astatine likelihood with statements by Mr. Trump and high-ranking members of his medication that person suggested the basal would beryllium utilized arsenic a detention tract for unsafe criminals.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a erstwhile U.S. migration authoritative during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the memo's rules "apply precise broadly to immoderate migrant who came to the U.S. via the U.S.-Mexico border."

"It's precise good known that astir each migrant who makes it to the U.S.-Mexico borderline would person to wage immoderate benignant of wealth to the cartels that power the territory connected the Mexican side, straight oregon indirectly," she said.

Cardinal Brown added that the rules bash not look to see "any individualized assessment" to find whether migrant detainees airs a threat, earlier transferring them to Guantanamo.

Department of Defense spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson confirmed the beingness of the memo, saying it "strengthens DoD and DHS collaboration by clarifying roles and responsibilities, and fostering businesslike and coordinated operations astatine Naval Station Guantanamo Bay."

CBS News reached retired to DHS representatives for comment.

The Guantanamo cognition is not the lone Trump medication migration effort to look scrutiny implicit who exactly has been targeted. In mid-March, for example, the medication deported 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, truthful they could beryllium imprisoned wrong that country's infamous mega-prison. The Trump medication said they were each criminals and pack members, but a "60 Minutes" investigation did not find a transgression grounds for 75% of the Venezuelan deportees.

A high-profile yet mostly secretive operation

The Trump medication archetypal began sending migrants to Guantanamo successful February, initially lone transferring Venezuelans there, including men it accused of having ties to the Tren de Aragua situation gang. The archetypal radical of Venezuelan detainees was yet flown to Honduras, wherever the Venezuelan authorities picked them up truthful they could beryllium transported backmost to their homeland.

Since then, the medication has sporadically flown migrants from antithetic countries to the base, earlier transferring them backmost to the U.S. oregon different nations. Administration officials person regularly touted the flights to Guantanamo but person provided constricted details astir the operation, including connected costs and who is eligible to beryllium sent to the base.

What has been publically revealed, by CBS News and different media outlets, is that officials person transferred some detainees considered to beryllium "high-threat" and "low-risk" to Guantanamo, including migrants whose relatives person denied allegations of pack rank and criminality.

Government guidelines specify migrant detainees arsenic posing a "high" menace if they person convulsive oregon superior transgression records, histories of disruptive behaviour oregon alleged pack ties. Low-risk detainees are defined arsenic migrants who look deportation due to the fact that they are successful the U.S. illegally but who deficiency immoderate superior transgression grounds — oregon immoderate astatine all.

Those sent to Guantanamo and considered to beryllium "high-threat" migrants person been held astatine Camp VI, a conception of the post-9/11 situation that inactive houses astir a twelve terrorism suspects. Migrant detainees deemed to airs a "low" hazard person been transferred to the base's Migrant Operations Center, a barrack-like installation that has historically housed asylum-seekers intercepted astatine sea.

Wilson, the Department of Defense spokeswoman, said determination are presently 42 migrants detained astatine Guantanamo, 32 of them housed astatine the Migrant Operations Center and 10 alleged "high-threat" detainees held astatine Camp VI.

The March 7 memo obtained by CBS News sheds airy connected different aspects of operations astatine Guantanamo. For example, it confirms the migrant detainees transported determination stay successful the ineligible custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, adjacent though the subject is providing entree to its facilities to detain them.

As portion of the agreement, DHS besides accepted the conditions astatine Camp VI and the Migrant Operations Centers arsenic capable to clasp migrant adults, noting it would not transportation children to the base. The section agreed to nonstop ICE officers oregon contractors to the base, including to oversee information astatine the Migrant Operations Center.

The memo makes DHS liable for providing detainees services similar recreation and spiritual accommodations; determining whether migrants get entree to lawyers; and administering "involuntary aesculapian treatment," specified arsenic force-feeding during hunger strikes.

The statement besides charges DHS with overseeing the transportation of detainees from and to Guantanamo, requiring the section to relocate migrants from the basal nary much than 180 days aft their deportation orders are issued.

The military, arsenic stipulated by the agreement, is principally liable for providing information astatine Camp VI and successful the perimeter of the facilities. It besides agreed to supply toilets and hygiene facilities, arsenic good arsenic aesculapian attraction to some ICE unit and detained migrants.

The memo says the Department of Defense committed to erect tents astatine the basal to clasp further detainees, though those sites person not been utilized to detain migrants yet. The statement notes, however, that those tents "do not person power, lighting, oregon heating/air conditioning."

The effort to clasp migrants astatine Guantanamo faces ineligible challenges by advocates, including astatine the American Civil Liberties Union, the Trump administration's main adversary successful national court.

The ACLU alleged successful tribunal filings that migrants were initially held incommunicado astatine Guantanamo, without entree to relatives oregon lawyers. The medication subsequently said it took steps to springiness migrant detainees entree to lawyers.

The ACLU has besides described detention conditions astatine Guantanamo arsenic deplorable, citing declarations from migrants held there. In one of those declarations, a Venezuelan antheral antecedently held astatine the basal said helium went connected a hunger onslaught aft feeling helium had been "kidnapped."

White House lawman main of unit Stephen Miller, the pb designer of the Trump administration's migration agenda, said earlier this week determination are nary plans to halt utilizing Guantanamo to detain migrants.

"It's wide open," Miller said on Fox News. "Gitmo is open."

Read the memo below:

Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.