The Trump administration is honing a well-oiled deportation machine that it hopes will move millions out of the country.
By Michael Gould-Wartofsky, Tom Dispatch
“Flights to Guantánamo Bay have begun. The worst of the worst have no place in our homeland.”
With those words the U.S. government announced the fate awaiting “criminal aliens” in its custody.
On a military base in El Paso, Texas, masked men in combat fatigues paraded a group of young Venezuelan immigrants, their hands cuffed and their ankles shackled, in front of the cameras, before loading them onto a waiting Air Force C-17, which was to deliver its human cargo to Naval Station Guantánamo Bay overnight.
Once there, they were to be incarcerated in the infamous Camp 6, held incommunicado in the same cells where al-Qaeda suspects were once held in indefinite detention, and guarded by the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. Meanwhile, a tent city, which could ultimately house as many as 30,000 detainees, rises around the prison.

Though most of those immigrants have since been returned to Venezuela, the Pentagon has pledged to continue using the base for the “temporary detention of illegal aliens who are pending return.”
Back on the mainland, the Department of Defense (DoD) is deploying thousands of troops to “seal the borders”; the Department of Justice (DoJ) is deputizing its agents to round up undocumented immigrants; Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is mobilizing to meet its daily quota of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests, armed with target lists, surveillance technology, and “less-lethal” weapons; and immigration detention facilities are to be built on military bases across the country.
And that’s not all either. Entire families are set to be detained, and the grim family-separation policy of the first Trump administration revived. Humanitarian parole is to be revoked, refugees rejected, and asylum seekers returned. And cities, counties, and states that dare to defy the deportation regime are to be punished.
Recent Posts
Democrats Have Let Republicans Become The “Peace” Party
October 17, 2025
Take Action Now The massive disconnect between the Democratic Party’s leadership and its base is sure to have ramifications far beyond last year’s…
‘Textbook Authoritarianism’: Trump Aims IRS Criminal Division At Left-Leaning Groups, Donors
October 16, 2025
Take Action Now Reporting by the Wall Street Journal indicates the active “weaponization” of the agency to target the far-right president’s political…
Trump Knesset Speech Displays Complete U.S. Backing Of Israel
October 15, 2025
Take Action Now Trump stirred controversy in several off-script moments in his address to the Israeli Knesset, including spotlighting a top…
When Far-Right Voters Learn Wage Inequality Facts, Their Support For Policy Solutions Jumps
October 15, 2025
Take Action Now A new study of voters in the United States and five other countries finds that those on the far right become much more supportive of…