Donald Trump says he will use a detention center at Guantánamo Bay to hold tens of thousands of criminal immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Most people don’t even know that we have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”

The president says up to 30,000 criminal migrants deported from the United States could be housed at the facility in Cuba, but it wasn't immediately clear how the plan would be implemented.

Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & NatSec newsletter{beacon} Defense &National Security Defense &National Security   The Big Story Under Trump orders, Guantánamo Bay

President Donald Trump ordered construction of a deportee detention camp with room for 30,000 migrants on the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Trump said earlier Wednesday that the U.S. has "30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people."

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Guantánamo Bay is the “perfect spot” to house deported migrants, after President Trump signed a memo Wednesday ordering a facility there be prepared for that purpose.

Trump made the announcement before he signed the Laken Riley Act into law as his administration's first piece of legislation.

President Trump is offering around two million federal workers to resign and be paid through September. Some Democratic lawmakers are pushing back against the buyouts, claiming they aren't legal. CBS News Digital politics reporter Kathryn Watson joins "America Decides" to break down the move.

President Donald Trump says he will use a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to hold tens of thousands of criminal immigrants in the U.S. illegally who can’t be sent back to their home countries

Not for the first time the U.S. federal government will turn to its agreed-upon lease with the Cuban government for a place to house migrants bound for or prohibited from staying in the United States.