Trump announces plans to detain 'criminal illegal aliens' at Guantanamo Bay

President Donald Trump, who made the deportation of immigrants a central part of his campaign and presidency, said Wednesday that the U.S. will use a detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to hold tens of thousands of the “worst criminal aliens.”

“We’re going to send them out to Guantánamo,” Trump said at the signing of the Laken Riley Act.

He later signed a presidential memorandum and said he’d direct federal officials to get facilities ready to receive criminal immigrants in the US illegally. Border czar Tom Homan said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would run the facility. Still, details of the plan weren’t immediately clear.

Here’s a look at the U.S. naval base, widely known as “Gitmo,” and its history: