Donald Trump says he will use a detention center at Guantánamo Bay to hold tens of thousands of criminal immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Donald Trump's team say the pause in some federal assistance still applies, but the withdrawal of the memo has sparked further confusion.

President Donald Trump has begun his second administration with a series of controversial moves and decisions.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned President Donald Trump's announcement that 30,000 deported migrants would be housed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base. Díaz-Canel called the move an "act of brutality" and said the base is "illegally occupied" in Cuba in a post to X on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump plans to sign the Laken Riley Act into law as his administration's first piece of legislation.

The US has maintained a migrant detention facility there for decades that is separate from the notorious high-security jail for foreign terror suspects, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Trump said earlier Wednesday that the U.S. has "30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people."

Human rights groups have accused U.S. authorities of using Guantánamo Bay for decades to detain migrants fleeing Haiti, Cuba and other Caribbean nations.

This is not the first time the naval base has been used to hold refugees trying to enter the U.S. illegally | Opinion

President Donald Trump announced plans Wednesday to build a massive facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba to house deported migrants—following an escalation across the country in recent days as part of what Trump has promised would be the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history.

Most people don’t even know that we have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”