Is Guantánamo Bay Our Dachau?
A Naval base with a dark history, Guantánamo Bay is Trump’s pick to imprison people he has deported—and potentially anyone else he deems an enemy—without due process.
Yesterday, Wednesday, January 29, 2025, Donald Trump ordered his administration to prepare the American Naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to receive 30,000 “criminals” deported by ICE.
30,000 people deported without due process.
30,000 people deported illegally.
Is this Trump’s first concentration camp?
I do not use the term “concentration camp” lightly. It is a term that brings to mind incomprehensible horrors, yet I must insist on drawing the comparison.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia explains:
“What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.”
The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.
Report after report has come through that ICE is rounding up people in workplaces, schools, churches, and homes. Legally, they are not allowed to enter any of these spaces without a warrant signed by a judge, but Donald Trump has instructed them to bypass the legal system and just do what he says.
Because he’s the king—er, president.
This would all be horrible enough, even if every single person picked up by ICE had crossed the border illegally. But this is not the case for many undocumented immigrants, who have entered the country legally but have let their visa expire or are working without authorization. Many of these people have been following the law as approved by Congress that, until Trump’s election, allowed for many of them to apply for asylum or live in the US under a temporary protective status.
Trump’s administration has claimed he is ridding our country of criminals (honestly, how can any of them say that with a straight face?)—but the majority of these people are not criminals.
In fact, living undocumented in the United States is a civil offense, not a criminal one, no matter what Karoline Leavitt says.
Being an undocumented person in the US is only punishable legally if someone has already left or been deported and has reentered without permission. They may be subject to imprisonment of up to 2 years.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric and the rise of Xenophobia in the United States have led some to believe that undocumented immigrants are considered “illegal aliens” under federal law. This is not accurate. The term does not appear anywhere in the federal immigration and nationality act. A conviction of a crime may subject an immigrant to removal from the United States, even if he or she is a lawful permanent resident. In contrast, immigrants who are undocumented but have not been convicted of any crime are not referred to as “criminal aliens” under the immigration laws. - Is Being an Undocumented Immigrant a Crime?
Additionally, according to our Constitution, every person accused of a crime in the US has the right to due process. Yet because the US has long been in need of immigration reform, and because Trump has dehumanized migrants for so long, there doesn’t seem to be much coverage on the fact that these people have a right to bring their case before a judge and jury of their peers.
A concentration camp functions outside of a judicial system.
Trump thinks he can just come into office and change the law because he doesn’t like it.
Honestly, we should have been prepared for this. Who can forget when Trump claimed “illegal” Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing pets and eating them? It didn’t take long for reporting to show that this slanderous story was a blatant lie, and also that Springfield’s Haitian migrants were living in the country legally, under a probation plan offered by President Biden. Yet JD Vance claimed this probation plan offered was illegal—or, at least that Trump believed it was illegal.
Now we have a president who believes parts of the Constitution are unconstitutional.
This isn’t Just About Immigration
Yes, Trump ran on the promise to execute mass deportations and it seems that’s a promise he intends to fulfill. (Never mind the fact that the majority of his voters did not support mass deportations, but voted for him primarily for economic reasons.)
But these actions point to something much bigger and worthy of our attention.
A Prison for Political Prisoners
The only campaign promise Trump made more often than the one to deport immigrants was that he would seek revenge on his political enemies.
Especially disturbing was his claim that he would help his supporters fight “the enemy from within:”
“The crazy lunatics that we have — the fascists, the Marxists, the communists, the people that we have that are actually running the country,” Trump said this month at a rally in Wisconsin. “Those people are more dangerous — the enemy from within — than Russia and China and other people.” - Donald Trump, as reported by AP News
And of course, by this he meant political enemies. He even said Liz Cheney should have to face a firing squad. Despite his supporters’ claims that he didn’t mean this literally, these same people insisted Trump told the truth when he distanced himself from Project 2025.
Now, he has released violent insurrectionists from prison and removed security detail from Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and most recently, Mark Milley.
It’s almost as if the chaos and cruelty were the point.
The Parallels are a Bit On the Nose
Dachau, the first and longest-running concentration camp of WWII, was announced in March of 1933 and was billed as a prison for political prisoners, enemies of the state:
“Initially the internees were primarily German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), gay men, as well as "asocials" and repeat criminal offenders.” - Holocaust Encyclopedia
These political prisoners, effectively providing slave labor to the state, built Dachau up from the abandoned munitions site it had once been into a sprawling campus. Cruel and inhumane punishments were instated in October 1933, and eventually the camp would add gas chambers and medical experimentation to its services. A training site for SS officers, the camp became a model for all other concentration camps.
Choosing Guantánamo Sends a Message
The choice of this specific Naval base is not random. Guantánamo Bay has a long history of illegal imprisonment, lack of appropriate oversight, and inhumane treatment (and torture) of prisoners:
“Created in the wake of 9/11 to house those suspected of terrorist activity, Guantánamo has housed up to 780 men, many of whom were later determined to be innocent of any wrongdoing after enduring years of abuse and unlawful detention. Today, 30 detainees remain, 19 of whom still have yet to be so much as charged with a crime.
Guantánamo was also home to one of many secret U.S. “black sites” documented in a 2014 Senate report on the CIA’s use of torture through so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The Senate report determined that these techniques—which included waterboarding, lengthy sleep deprivation, acts of sexual assault, and years of solitary confinement—did not aid in counterterrorism efforts.”
For years, activists have called for the US government to close Guantánamo; now it seems Trump only wants to build on the evil legacy that already exists.
The Fear is Strong, but is His Power?
It is clear that Donald Trump wants to use fear and chaos to keep the American people confused and flailing.
The good news is, Trump is a showman above all else. It is not readily apparent how Guantanamo Bay could be prepared in time to receive tens of thousands of deportees. Much like the many other orders he has signed in his first two weeks, this command has left government officials scratching their heads.
Aside from a lack of clarity in the logistics, there is also the point that Dan Pfeiffer makes: Trump’s first two weeks in office are incredibly unpopular—rivaled only by the worst ever approval rating of an incoming president, and that would be Trump’s, back in 2017.
It is unclear whether Trump will successfully send thousands of displaced people to an unregulated, historically depraved prison at a Naval base in Cuba. It is unclear whether he will use it as an exile for anyone he deems a personal or political foe. It is unclear how much power he has consolidated around himself, and how loyal his loyalists will prove to be.
My intention is not to stoke panic and fear (Trump is doing enough of that on his own), but to call our attention to patterns that may reveal themselves to be true. We know what happened in the Holocaust, but perhaps we forget that it didn’t happen all at once or with great, immediate power. The horrors of Hitler’s actions are most poignant when we realize that he recruited the help of thousands of people who never could have imagined what he ultimately planned to do.
Our advantage is that we know what can happen. Our advantage is that we can see what Trump is signaling, what he could eventually do—not only because it’s been done before, but because he has been clearly telling us his intentions all along.
He only has as much power as the American people give him.
The stakes are incredibly high, but we are not alone. Lucas Guttentag, an official in the Biden’s Justice Department who once led a lawsuit defending Haitian refugees held unlawfully at Guantánamo, told the New York Times:
“Guantánamo is a black hole designed to escape scrutiny and with a dark history of inhumane conditions. It is a transparent attempt to avoid legal oversight that will fail.”
I pray he is right. Guantanamo Bay does not have to become the Dachau of the United States. But we must stay awake and aware. We must not ignore or dismiss such dangerous threats. We must speak out and fight back.
Recommended Reading:
Trump Says U.S. Will Hold Migrants at Guantánamo
White House Press Secretary’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Claim Is Quickly Dismantled By Critics
Is Being an Undocumented Immigrant a Crime?
Fact check: Are Haitian immigrants in Springfield in the US illegally?
22 Years Later, Guantánamo and Its Dark Legacy Endure
Holocaust Encyclopedia: Dachau
Who Does Trump See as Enemies From Within?
Suggesting ‘nine barrels shooting’ at Cheney, Trump reverts to violent rhetoric
Trump’s Early Actions Mirror Project 2025, the Blueprint He Once Dismissed
Thank you for sharing. So much to say, so disturbing!