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White House Denies Trump Prepping to Send Thousands More Migrants to Guantánamo
Sending more undocumented people there, one lawyer said, would be a "natural extension of the crimes committed at Gitmo for two decades, and also wildly, wildly illegal."
Jun 11, 2025
Citing government documents and unnamed officials, Politico and The Washington Post reported Tuesday that President Donald Trump's administration is preparing to potentially transfer up to thousands of undocumented immigrants to the U.S. naval station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba—though the White House denies it.
"This story is Fake News. Not happening," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on social media Wednesday, sharing a link to the Post. Far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-S.C.) suggested Trump should sue the newspaper.
Rights advocates last week filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration for sending migrants to the "notorious" military base where the U.S. government held and tortured foreigners as part of the so-called War on Terror.
Now, at least 9,000 people are "being vetted for transfer," which "would be an exponential increase from the roughly 500 migrants who have been held for short periods at the base since February," according to Politico.
As the Post detailed:
The foreign nationals under consideration hail from a range of countries. They include hundreds from friendly European nations, including Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, and Ukraine, but also other parts of the world, including many from Haiti. Officials shared the plans with The Washington Post, including some documents, on the condition of anonymity because the matter is considered highly sensitive.
The administration is unlikely to inform the foreigners' home governments about the impending transfers to the infamous military facility, including close U.S. allies such as Britain, Germany, and France, the officials said.
Politico noted that U.S. State Department officials who deal with Europe are trying to persuade the Department of Homeland Security to ditch the plan. One of them said: "The message is to shock and horrify people, to upset people... But we're allies."
Responding to the Post's reporting on social media, former U.S. diplomat William Gill said that "this is a clear violation of international law. A foreign detainee's government must immediately be notified via its local consulate and has right of access to the detainee to provide assistance/arrange legal representation. Failure to respect this jeopardizes Americans abroad."
Alka Pradhan, an attorney who has represented Guantánamo detainees, said: "Please understand both that this is [a] natural extension of the crimes committed at Gitmo for two decades, and also wildly, wildly illegal. This is not 'complex' or 'difficult' or related to security or defensible in any way."
In the case filed in Washington, D.C. last week on behalf of two Nicaraguan men and other noncitizens now at Guantánamo, rights groups are asking U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, to rule that detaining these migrants there violates the Immigration and Nationality Act, Administrative Procedure Act, and Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
"The government's real reason for holding immigration detainees at Guantánamo is to instill fear in the immigrant population," the complaint declares. "That is not conjecture; it is government policy."
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Trump’s Animosity Is Bringing Europeans Closer Together and to the Rest of the World
There is an emerging consensus among European policymakers and experts alike that Trump wants to do to the E.U. what he is doing to the U.S.—destroy its civil society.
Jun 03, 2025
The European Union came into existence in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which led to a single market, border-free travel, and the euro. Since then, the E.U. has evolved in various ways, although it has stopped short of developing a centralized fiscal authority and setting up a European army. Moreover, the E.U. has long been plagued by a number of legitimacy problems that have given rise to Euroscepticism among both left-wing and right-wing citizens.
Nonetheless, certain recent global developments are forcing the E.U. to upend many long-held ideas and norms about its own security and relations with other countries. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the sudden shift in U.S. policy toward Europe have made both policymakers and citizens across the continent more aware of the need not only for deeper integration and a new European governance architecture but also of the historical necessity to create a new world order. While Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced the E.U. to rethink its energy policy and compelled countries such as Finland and Sweden to become full members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is U.S. President Donald Trump’s hostility toward Europe and its institutions that is bringing Europeans closer together and even making them realize that the E.U. is a safe haven when all is said and done.
Indeed, the latest Eurobarometer survey, which was released on May 27, 2025, reveals the highest level of trust in the E.U. in nearly two decades and the highest support ever for the common currency. The overwhelming majority of respondents also displayed support for a common defense system among E.U. member states and opposition to tariffs. Equally impressive is the fact that a huge majority agreed that the E.U. is “a place of stability in a troubled world.”
Trump is trying to remake the United States in his own image and also to destroy the E.U., which he says is “nastier than China.”
These findings come just days after Trump told a rally in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania that he will double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50%. This move, which will take effect on June 4, prompted the European Commission to announce that Europe is prepared to roll out countermeasures in order to retaliate against President Trump’s plan to increase steel and aluminum tariffs. It said that it “strongly” regrets Trump’s threat and that “if no mutually acceptable solution is reached both existing and additional E.U. measures will automatically take effect on July 14—or earlier, if circumstances require.”
The concern among many Europeans is that U.S.-E.U. relations are not only seriously damaged but that the U.S. has now become Europe’s enemy. Since coming to office, Trump has launched an active campaign against European democracy, with members of his administration not only bashing Europe but openly supporting far-right parties across the continent.
The common perception about Europe is that it is indecisive, too slow to act, even when major crises come knocking at its door. There is an element of truth in that, as the E.U. has shown a proclivity for reactive rather than proactive political behavior. But the Trump shock appears to be rousing Europe from its geopolitical slumber. The E.U. is standing up to the bully in Washington and is looking after Europe’s own interests with greater zeal than ever before. This is because there is indeed an emerging consensus among European policymakers and experts alike that Trump wants to do to Europe what he is doing to the U.S.--i.e., destroy its civil society. MAGA hates Europe for cultural and political reasons. For Trump, as Célia Belin, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of the Paris office, aptly put it, “Europeans are an extension of his political opposition at home... and Europe is thus a symbol of the political ideals [that] Trump seeks to eliminate, transform, and subjugate.”
In its attempts to find a new role in world affairs in the Trump era, Europe is not merely reacting to Washington’s whims but seeks to implement policies that reinforce its own strategic autonomy, both internally and externally. The European Commission has updated its industrial strategy by speeding up clean energy and pursuing new trade agreements with reliable partners. While some European leaders see both Russia and China as representing a threat to the rules-based international order, there have been numerous calls by various policymakers across the continent for a closer collaboration between China and the E.U. in light of “Trump’s ‘mafia-like’ tactics.” European Union leaders will travel for a high-stakes summit to Beijing in July after failing to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Brussels for a summit marking the 50th anniversary of E.U.-China diplomatic relations. And France has called for a stronger E.U.-China alignment on climate action amid the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
China is the E.U.’s second-largest trading partner. Europe is, in fact, not only growing more dependent on China for manufactured goods but, in spite of differences in bilateral relations, such as China’s position on the war in Ukraine, is actually warming up to the idea that the E.U.-China relationship is an essential vehicle for tackling global challenges and safeguarding international multilateralism.
Europe is also looking into other regions of the world as part of a concerted effort to promote ever more vigorously its own strategic autonomy. Since Trump took office, the E.U. concluded a free trade agreement with Mercosur, an economic bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, with scores of other countries (among them are Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru) as associate members. Mercosur, or the Southern Common Market, is the fifth-largest economy and encompasses more than 285 million people.
The E.U.-Mercosur agreement, which had been in the making for 25 years, still needs to be ratified, and Argentina’s far-right Milei government, which is in close political-ideological alignment with the Trump administration, could prove to be a stumbling block to its ratification. Argentinian President Javier Milei is, in fact, more interested in signing a free trade agreement with the United States, which would be in violation of Mercosur regulations.
After many years of negotiations, the E.U. is also close to finalizing a free trade agreement with India. The 11th round of negotiations between India and the E.U. concluded on May 16, and there is a firm commitment by both sides to strike a deal by the end of 2025. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, this agreement would be “the largest deal of its kind anywhere in the world.”
If ratified, the E.U.-Mercosur free trade agreement will create a market of around 800 million people. When finalized, the E.U.-India free trade agreement will create a market of close to 2 billion consumers.
Trump is trying to remake the United States in his own image and also to destroy the E.U., which he says is “nastier than China.” One would like to believe that it is probably unlikely that he will succeed in remaking the U.S. in his own nasty image, but it is positively certain that he will not succeed in destroying Europe and its institutions, even though there is a lot that needs to be done to create a fairer and more inclusive Europe. In the meantime, however, Trump’s “mafia-like tactics” are bringing Europeans closer together and the continent ever closer to other regions of the world.
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Far-Right Karol Nawrocki, Backed by Trump and Orbán, Wins Polish Presidency
"Nawrocki's win has given pro-Donald Trump, anti-liberal, anti-E.U. forces across the continent a shot in the arm."
Jun 02, 2025
Far-right candidate Karol Nawrocki emerged Monday as the narrow winner of Poland's presidential election, a contest in which the Trump administration in the U.S. and Hungary's authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, weighed in on the side of their ideological compatriot.
Nawrocki's victory over Rafał Trzaskowski, the Warsaw mayor who was representing the party of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, was celebrated by right-wing figures around the world, including Orbán and Jordan Bardella, the head of France's far-right National Rally party.
"The Polish people have spoken and their free and democratic choice must be respected, including by the Brussels leaders who ardently hoped for their defeat," Bardella wrote on social media following news that Nawrocki, a historian and "former football hooligan" backed by Poland's Law and Justice Party, prevailed in one of the closest elections in the country's history.
Nawrocki's win came days after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem endorsed him during a speech at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering in Poland last week.
"[U.S. President] Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity to have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country," said Noem. "If you elect a leader who will work with President Trump, the Polish people will have a strong ally. You will continue to have a U.S. military presence here... and you will have equipment that is American-made, high quality."
In early May, Nawrocki met with Trump in the Oval Office in what was seen as a show of support from the White House ahead of the election.
Franziska Davies, assistant professor of Eastern and Central-Eastern European History at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, wrote that Nawrocki's win is "bad news for Poland, for Europe, for Ukraine, and for democracy."
As the Financial Times reported, "Nawrocki ran a campaign centred on conservative Catholic values and rhetoric attacking the E.U.'s stance on migration and climate change."
"The 42-year-old is a political ally of Hungary's premier Viktor Orbán and other Eurosceptic populists, and has suggested that he could seek to alter Poland's strongly pro-Ukraine stance, as one of the NATO alliance's most important Eastern members," FT added. "While Poland's prime minister holds more political power, the president can block legislation, and nominates senior posts such as the central bank governor."
Adam Simpson, senior lecturer in International Studies in Justice and Society at the University of South Australia, warned Monday that the ensuing "legislative gridlock could well see Law and Justice return to government in the 2027 general elections, which would lock in the anti-democratic changes the party made during their last term in office from 2015–2023."
"This included eroding Poland's judicial independence by effectively taking control of judicial appointments and the Supreme Court," Simpson added. "Nawrocki's win has given pro-Donald Trump, anti-liberal, anti-E.U. forces across the continent a shot in the arm. It's bad news for the E.U., Ukraine, and women."
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