Trump vows to build migrant detention center at Guantanamo Bay as he signs Laken Riley bill

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Wednesday signed into law the first bill of his second term, a measure that would require immigration officials to detain immigrants arrested or charged with property crimes, among others, and give broad legal authority to state attorneys general to challenge federal immigration law. “Today’s signings bring us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all,” Trump said. Immigration advocates and attorneys have warned the bill would help fuel Trump’s promise to enact mass deportations by requiring the detainment of immigrants charged with property crime.

ICE has funding for roughly 41,000 detention beds. During the ceremony, Trump said that he will also sign a directive Wednesday to instruct the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to prepare for a migrant detention center in Guantanamo Bay to hold up to 30,000 beds. “We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” Trump said.



“Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo. That’s a tough..

. place to get out of.” From 1994 to 1996, the U.

S. government used Guantanamo Bay to detain more than 30,000 Cubans fleeing due to political instability and economic downturn. In 2002, former President George W.

Bush used the site to hold terrorism suspects who could be detained and interrogated without restraint following the Sept. 11 attacks. DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s questions about a new detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

The facility has typically been used to detain asylum seekers on the way to the United States, rather than to move people already in the country to the naval base. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told reporters that U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement would run the naval base. “We’re just going to expand upon the existing migrant center,” Homan said. Laken Riley Act signed The bill Trump signed is named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley, who was murdered by a man immigration officials say was in the country without authorization and was previously charged with shoplifting.

“We will keep Laken’s memory alive in our hearts forever, everyone’s hearts with today’s action,” Trump said. “Her name will also live forever in the laws of our country and this is a very important law.” Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, was also at the signing and thanked Trump for the bill.

“There’s no amount of change that will ever bring back our precious Laken,” she said. “Our hope moving forward is that her life saves lives.” Trump criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policy and blamed it for Riley’s death.

“Under the cruel policies of the last administration, instead of being deported as he should have been, he was released into the United States, as were millions of other people, many of them very dangerous people, and you see what we’re doing, we’re getting (them) the hell out of here,” Trump said. Senate Republicans also expanded the mandatory detention requirements originally for property crime, like shoplifting or burglary, to include the assault of a law enforcement officer and bodily harm to another person. Trump praised Alabama GOP Sen.

Katie Britt for shepherding the bill in the upper chamber. He also called on Congress to provide his administration with funding to carry out deportations. “We need Congress to provide full funding for the complete and total restoration of our sovereign borders, as well as financial support to remove record numbers of illegal aliens,” Trump said.

ICE has estimated the cost of enforcing the Laken Riley Act would be $26.9 billion in its first year, according to NPR. The budget for ICE for fiscal year 2024 is about $9 billion.

Due process criticism The bill gained bipartisan support , despite concerns from immigration advocates and attorneys who warned the measure would scuttle due process rights for immigrants, and give state attorneys general the authority to question the bond decision of immigration judges. Additionally, there is no carve-out for immigrant children in the bill, meaning they could be detained and not released on bond. Immigration attorneys have argued that while the bill aims to target people in the country without proper authorization, it would ensnare some immigrants with legal statuses that are discretionary such as humanitarian parole and even Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, colloquially called Dreamers.

The Trump administration last week, gave immigration officials the authority to cancel humanitarian parole — a discretionary status — for immigrants who arrived in the U.S. within the last two years.

That would include the roughly 1.5 million immigrants the Biden administration allowed into the U.S.

through various legal pathways. And legal advocates this week said they were barred from providing legal services in detention centers and had their Justice Department funding cut that provided assistance to immigrants navigating immigration court proceedings. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday also revoked an extension for temporary protections for about 600,000 Venezuelans.

Trump praised Noem for her work so far. Earlier this week, Noem was in New York City earlier accompanying ICE on raids. “I know it’s probably not complimentary, because she is a woman, but she is tough,” Trump said of Noem.

Last updated 2:08 p.m., Jan.

29, 2025.