Donald Trump is building a concentration camp for 30,000 migrants in Guantanamo Bay.
because absolutely nothing says freedom and liberty like a concentration camp built in a country that you are illegally occupying.
Good day, spectators,
When I say Guantanamo Bay, what image does that conjure up in your mind? For most of us, I assume, it's the stuff of dystopian nightmares—broken prisoners in orange jumpsuits, languishing without trial, no legal representation, no real hope of release. Where the concept of justice is whatever the hell the US government decides it is that day.
But here’s the thing: ‘Gitmo’, as it’s nicknamed, hasn’t actually been operating at full capacity for years. The US has spent billions maintaining this site while keeping only a handful of detainees there, most of whom have been locked up for decades with no conviction. The prison population has been dwindling, and Guantanamo’s grim legacy, while still very much alive, has mostly slipped out of public consciousness.
Until now.
Donald Trump is, as you read this, planning to turn Guantanamo Bay into a mass internment camp for migrants. His administration is preparing to detain 30,000 undocumented migrants in the same place that became infamous for waterboarding, indefinite detention, and complete lack of oversight. This is not some vague idea being floated—it’s happening.
And that should terrify everyone.
Watch: Donald Trump announces he has instructed the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000 person ‘migrant facility’ at Guantanamo Bay.
the man who would be dictator
Spectators, I don’t say this lightly, but we are watching history repeat itself. Every authoritarian regime follows the same playbook: find an ‘undesirable’ group, dehumanise them, isolate them, and then take increasingly extreme measures under the guise of security (See: Israel). Guantanamo Bay was already a dodgy legal black hole, but now it will become something even worse—a mass holding pen for anyone Trump deems unwanted.
These detainees will have zero legal rights, no proper representation, no ability to challenge their detention. They will be held indefinitely in a place specifically designed to be outside of US legal jurisdiction. Their families won’t be able to visit. Human rights organisations will have no oversight. It will be a system of mass incarceration, designed to be forgotten.
And this won’t be the end. If the US government successfully gets away with mass internment of migrants offshore, what stops them from expanding that system elsewhere?
Trump is not playing by the rules of the old order. His rhetoric has gone beyond the average political bluster—he is openly laying the groundwork for a permanent crackdown on the people he deems unworthy of being in his ‘pure’ America. He is already testing the waters of a third term, openly talking about ways to stay in power beyond the usual limits and filing the right paperwork to make it happen.
His supporters are eating it up.
so what happens next?
The US was already ramping up a new wave of mass deportations under Trump’s presidency, with thousands being forcibly removed in an operation larger than anything seen before. He has declared a national emergency at the border, deployed 10,000 troops, and is fast-tracking deportations at an unprecedented scale.
Guantanamo Bay, then, is clearly not an isolated measure—it’s part of a broader infrastructure of mass detention and removal. The goal is clear: to make deportations faster, more brutal and terrifying, and more legally untouchable. And if this system proves successful, where does it stop? The US has already set a precedent for stripping citizenship from naturalised immigrants. How long before that extends to birthright citizens? How long before this kind of detention expands beyond migrants and begins to include…say…political opponents?
Well, it's setting a precedent. If the US can start putting migrants in concentration camps offshore, they can put you there too. The worst part is, Trump is not some anomaly. He is just the latest and most extreme version of a system that has always existed. Biden, Obama, Bush—they all contributed to this trajectory. But Trump is simply more overt and his followers love it.
We often wonder how societies sleepwalk into fascism. Well, this is how. Not all at once, but piece by piece, until one day, it’s simply normal.
And that is the real horror.
And on that thought, I will let you go. Please let me know where you think this is headed in the comments below, I love the discussion,
(As always, thanks for reading and please give this post a ❤️ and restack below.)
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Read more from the spectacle…
I am terrified, I am one of the people who could end up there
Great analysis. Prosecution of opposition will take things backwards momentarily, yet in best case scenario, a less hypocritical resistance emerges.