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00:00In other world news, Donald Trump says he plans to sign an executive order
00:03instructing the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security
00:07to prepare a migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay.
00:10Accommodating up to 30,000 people, he said it would be used to detain
00:15the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people, as he put it.
00:21The detention center at Guantanamo Bay on the coast of Cuba was set up in 2002
00:25by former President George W. Bush to detain foreign militant suspects
00:30following the September 11th terrorist attacks.
00:34Well, for more, let's cross live now to our correspondent in Washington, Fraser Jackson.
00:41Fraser, tell us firstly, what more do we know about this order
00:44to send migrants to the notorious Guantanamo Bay?
00:51Well, this is not exactly an executive order.
00:53It's an executive memorandum, which my legal friends have pointed out is slightly different.
00:57It has different ramifications, especially when it comes to budget in particular.
01:02But this memorandum has now been signed directing the DHS,
01:06the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon to prepare this 30,000 bed facility.
01:11And now Trump said, we have 30,000 beds to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens
01:16threatening the American people.
01:17He then continues, we don't want them coming back.
01:20So we're going to send them to Guantanamo.
01:23We also got a gaggle with the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,
01:28Kristi Noem, and we asked her some questions along with Tom Homan,
01:32the man who was named the border czar.
01:34They so far have not been told what the cost of this new facility is going to be.
01:39They said that the cost is still going to be appropriated
01:41and they need to figure out how much exactly really it's going to cost.
01:45But Secretary Noem said that the people there are going to be, quote, the worst of the worst.
01:50Then it came out also in that gaggle that the people being held in custody there
01:57are going to come under the purview of ICE, the Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency,
02:03which has been rounding people up in Chicago and the like over the course of the last couple of days.
02:08Now, we're getting some reaction as well from Cuba, the island, of course,
02:11where Guantanamo Bay is actually located on.
02:14The Cuban government's calling this an act of brutality to our colleagues at the AFP news agency.
02:21And Fraser, Democrats have tried for years to get Guantanamo closed down.
02:25There is little chance of that happening now, we would presume.
02:31Yeah, well, this is known as a prison camp housing terrorists,
02:35but actually it's not just that.
02:37It's actually been used for decades to house migrants who were intercepted at sea,
02:42trying to make it to the United States.
02:44What happens in that process is these migrants are screened on the boat,
02:48just as they would be at the southern border, for example,
02:51and then they're effectively given a choice whether to return where they came from
02:55or to be detained at Gitmo whilst they're waiting for a third nation to take them in effectively.
03:01So they then kind of fall into this legal gray area,
03:04which is not really under the purview of normal, typical US custom laws.
03:08Now, as of February, there were just four people being housed there,
03:12but the conditions have been questioned by government watchdogs.
03:15They've been reports of overflowing toilets and rats in the corridors.
03:20But the numbers that we are told there, that four,
03:23the four migrants being housed there are not counting the untold numbers
03:27that are quickly processed and then deported.
03:29Those four are more long-term residents, as it were.
03:33They are being housed separately from the terrorists that we know
03:36who took part in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
03:40But they are given slightly a few more liberties, as it were.
03:44They do have curfews, but they're allowed to get a job on the island as well,
03:48another part of the camp, not close to the detention facility.
03:52But that now is likely to change.
03:53Now that this is ramping up to 30,000 people,
03:56those few freedoms that those people enjoyed are likely not to be given to the new arrivals,
04:01especially as they're being described as the worst of the worst by Secretary Nome.
04:06Fraser, for now, thank you.
04:07That is Fraser Jackson, our correspondent in Washington.
04:11Let's move on to Otherworld News.