Trump to send 30,000 criminal illegal immigrants to Guantanamo Bay as he taunts ‘it’s a tough place to get out’

DONALD Trump has revealed plans to send up to 30,000 illegal immigrants to detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

The US President's declaration comes as part of his campaign to mass-deport migrants who have committed crimes.

Trump’s remarks came just before he signed the Laken Riley Act - a hardline immigration measure pushed through with some Democratic support - into official law.

The President declared: “Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay.

“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 added that “some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.”

He continued: ";So we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo. It’s a tough place to get out of.” 

The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan man as she went for a run at her university campus.

The Laken Riley Act requires the detention of unauthorised immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters that “the White House is currently working on [using] resources we currently have in Guantanamo Bay” to increase the number of beds for “the worst of the worst.”

“We’re already doing it,” Noem said. “We’re building it out.”

Trump has now also signed a memorandum which directs the secretary of defence and the secretary of Homeland Security to "take all appropriate actions" to expand the centre to "full capacity".

The infamous detention facility at Guantanamo Bay was first set up in 2002 by then-US President George W Bush to detain foreign militant suspects following the September 11 2001, attacks.

But the facility for migrants is separate from the detention center on the base.

On Tuesday, the US military said that it would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants at Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado.

The US has a long-term lease from Cuba’s government for a naval facility at Guantanamo Bay.

Trump said the executive order brings the U.S. one step closer to "eradicating the scourge" of migrant crime in communities, once and for all.

He also called on Congress to provide full funding for the complete and total restoration of U.S. borders and financial support to remove record numbers of illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the detention facility the "perfect place" for criminal illegal aliens.

Hegseth told Fox News "Gitmo" could also hold other illegal aliens -temporarily- before they can be sent back to their home countries.

He added: "Better they be held at a safe location, like Guantanamo Bay, which is meant and built for migrants, meant and built to sustain that away from the American people."

Hegseth also noted that converting the golf course at Guantanamo Bay could "provide an additional 6, 000 places where migrants or illegals could go".

Only 15 terror suspects remain there, down from nearly 700 in 2003.

It is unclear if there are any legal hurdles to Trump’s plan.