Welcome to Andy Worthington

My detailed analysis of Trump’s mass detention and deportation after its first year, as an increasing number of news reports focus on appalling conditions in ICE’s detention facilities, including children held in the Dilly detention center in Texas, and as ominous news emerges of a massive expansion of detention facilities. This follows the unprecedented seven-fold increase in ICE’s budget via last summer’s shamefully-named “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which provided the scandal-wracked agency with $75 billion — $45 billion for the expansion of detention capacity, and $30 billion for immigration enforcement. In recent weeks, ICE has spent over $500 million buying seven empty warehouses in several states, with some intended to hold between 7,500 and 10,000 immigrants, causing consternation and anger in the local communities, who were largely not consulted, and who face a significant loss of tax revenues and as well as a colossal strain on local resources via the new facilities. The expansion comes despite widespread revulsion at ICE’s activities, following the execution of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and the increasing awareness that, over the last year, the number of ICE facilities and the number of immigrants held have doubled, even though almost three-quarters of those held have no criminal records, refuting the administration’s claims that it is only targeting “heinous criminal illegal aliens” for deportation. I also focus on the role of Stephen Miller, the profoundly racist driver of the mass deportation program, whose relentless target-driven approach to deportation has directly led to the massive overcrowding in ICE facilities, concerted efforts to broaden the scope of those who can be deported, and relentless assaults on the courts. Miller’s malignant obsession is such that, as I describe it, what he has been creating over the last year “is not so much a detention and deportation system, as a sprawling detention system in which deportation is largely a mirage, and the United States will end up holding vast numbers of people, never convicted of a crime, in a gulag of brutal and lawless prisons for years, if not indefinitely, at a cost that is almost unimaginable both economically and morally.” The only solution, I suggest, is that “Miller needs to be removed, and the entire detention and deportation system overhauled to resemble something that meaningfully recognizes that, while there may be problems with a small number of undocumented migrants with violent criminal records, most immigrants are, unreservedly, not the enemy, and have as much of a right to work and live unmolested in the United States as US citizens.”

Photos from, and my report about the “First Wednesday” monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay on February 4, 2026, marking the third anniversary of the vigils, and a return to the regular “First Wednesday” slot after last month, when the vigils were moved to Sunday January 11 to mark the 24th anniversary of the opening of the prison. Nine vigils took place across the US and around the world, including at the White House, outside the Houses of Parliament in London, and outside the European Parliament in Brussels, and after the London vigil campaigners also delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street, urging the UK government to continue to call for Guantánamo’s closure, and to repudiate its recent claim that it is solely the business of the US government.

My examination of Israel’s begrudging and belated re-opening of the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt — the only route in and out of Gaza that doesn’t pass through Israeli territory — in which I reflect on how “Israel has done all it can to to turn the re-opening into yet another example of its obsessive desire to control every aspect of the sealed death camp it has created in Gaza over the last 28 months, and its equally obsessive desire to humiliate Palestinians — when not killing them directly — at every opportunity.” After procrastinating for months, Israel nominally agreed to allow 50 wounded Palestinians (plus 100 companions) to leave Gaza for Egypt every day, and also to allow 50 vetted Palestinians to return from Egypt, where 100,000 Palestinians fled, generally at great expense, in the seven months of genocide until Israel closed the crossing in May 2024. Despite Israel’s promises, however, the numbers allowed in and out of Gaza, in the first few days, have been far less than those promised, and many of the women who have been allowed to return to date have stated that they were blindfolded, subjected to abusive interrogations and urged to become informants, with Abu Shabab gang members involved as they reached Gaza. The women also explained that everything that they brought with them was taken off them, except for one bag of clothes and a mobile phone, which was clearly unnecessary and intentionally cruel. I also look back on the history of the crossing, and focus particularly on how its closure in May 2024 exposed Israel’s lies about encouraging “voluntary migration”, as it deliberately sealed off the only route that made that possible, confirming that what it “clearly intended to do was to ruthlessly cut off Gaza from the outside world, turning what had long been an ‘open-air prison’ into a sealed death camp.” With Donald Trump only interested in Gaza when it serves his purpose to get world leaders together to fawn over him as a “peacemaker”, it remains to be seen if any meaningful pressure can be exerted on Israel to significantly increase the numbers of arrivals and departures, especially as it will otherwise take many years for the 20,000 people in need of medical care to leave, and for the 30,000 to come home who have registered their intent to return, and also because it is reasonable to assume that Israel will find any excuse it can to shut the whole process down.

My reflections on the execution, by immigration enforcement officials, of two US citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — on the streets of Minneapolis, both captured in videos recorded on cellphones, and the extraordinary and unforgivable decision by senior Trump administration officials to deny the evidence, blaming the victims, and seeking to exonerate their killers, made by Trump himself, Vice President JD Vance, Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller and Homeland Security director Kristi Noem. Faced with unprecedented condemnation of its actions, and of the violent impunity of ICE and Border Patrol agents, Trump has finally started to recognize that the tide is turning against him, but because his brutal, arbitrary mass deportation program is at the heart of his second presidency, it seem unlikely that he will do what is required, and shut the entire malignant operation down. I trace the history of the deportation program over the last year, including the “invasions” of major US cities, an extraordinary increase in funding for ICE’s operations, and the proliferation of new prison facilities, where torture, abuse and “disappearances” are rampant, and where, last year, 32 “detainees” were killed. At the heart of this nationwide malevolence is Miller, Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser and White House Deputy Chief of Staff, who is so obsessed with stopping and reversing immigration to the US that it is reasonable to assume that, for him, the claimed focus on deporting undocumented migrants with criminal records was only ever useful to provide cover for his real aim, which has always been to ethnically cleanse the US of as many immigrants as possible while similarly destroying all opposition to his plans; hence, his description, in August, of the entire Democratic Party as “a domestic extremist organization”, and the demonization and disposability of, essentially, anyone who opposes him; Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, for example, both of whom he described as “domestic terrorists.” In pursuing his malignant vision, Miller is clearly implementing fascism in the US. Of course, he works for Trump, who is clearly supportive of his vile racism, which reflects his own dark hatreds, but, as opposition grows, will Trump support a vision of “racially pure” America that not only requires terror on the streets and an expanding network of torture prisons, but also the ruthless and continuing suppression — up to and including executions on the streets of US cities — of everyone who dares to dissent, or will he step back from the abyss? The very future of the United States depends on his decision.

My response to the unveiling of a grotesque vision for the “regeneration” of Gaza, presented by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a prominent real estate investor, at the launch of Trump’s “Board of Peace” at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 22. Kushner’s vision — of “New Gaza”, a futuristic high-rise coastal tourist resort on Gaza’s shoreline, “New Rafah”, a brand-new city for 100,000 people, and other new residential areas flanked by industrial complexes featuring “data centers” and “advanced manufacturing” — was dreamt up with other real estate developers involved in Trump’s “Board of Peace”, and is the vilest manifestation of the mania for “regeneration” that has dominated so much of the global economy for the last two decades. Never before, however, has this kind of “regeneration” been proposed for the site of a genocide, and yet this, sickeningly, is what Kushner’s vision involves, in a plan that also, crucially, sidelines the two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, almost as though they don’t exist. There are reasons for doubting that Kushner’s plan will succeed — not least because efforts by the US and Israel to displace the Palestinians have proven impossible to achieve — but its unveiling confirms that the Palestinians are now trapped between Israel, which still seeks to erase them entirely, and the most soulless real estate developers in history. What hope there is rests with Hamas and the other Palestinian factions, whose disarmament is a prerequisite not only for the “stability” that Kushner needs for investors, but also, according to its own stated aims, for the State of Israel. On this front, it seems to me, the only realistic way forward lies with the Palestinian technocratic committee, appointed as part of Trump’s “Peace Plan”, who can liaise successfully with Hamas if they are given genuine administrative power, with the support of the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries who have long been involved in negotiations for peace in Gaza; in particular, Qatar and Egypt. The committee has already declared its own commitment to Egypt’s five-year regeneration plan, launched last year, which envisages the immediate provision of temporary housing units for 1.5 million Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip, along with the restoration of “the essential services that form the bedrock of human dignity such as electricity, water, healthcare, and education.”

In my latest analysis of the situation in the Gaza Strip, I look at how the surviving Palestinians are caught between, on the one hand, Israel, which still occupies 58% of Gaza, and still hopes to actively resume its genocidal assault, and a US-led colonial project, which claims to want to bring peace, but is disturbingly led by mostly US politicians and businessmen who only seem interested in its future as a real estate and business opportunity, in which the Palestinians are regarded as either peripheral or irrelevant. Although some hope must rest with the appointment of the Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the technocratic committee charged with the day-to-day running of Gaza, it is alarming that, above it are not one, but two largely US-led organizations — the Board of Peace, led by Trump, and featuring only Americans, apart from the inclusion of Tony Blair, and the Gaza Economic Board, which also, at least, includes representatives of the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries who have played a major part in the long negotiations for peace. In addition to doubts about the sincerity or ability of these organizations to bring peace, questions also remain about the extent to which Israel has been excluded, and how much, if at all, it will seek to insist that it has the right to put its own security first, and to press ahead with efforts to resume its genocidal assault on Gaza. More than anything, this, in particular, must not be allowed.

Over 50 photos from the 19 global vigils for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay that took place across the US and around the world marking the shameful and unforgivable 24th anniversary of the opening of the prison on January 11. The article also includes my report about the significance of the vigils, because of the fundamental and unending lawlessness of the prison, and also because of Donald Trump’s cynical co-opting of it over the last year as a venue for performative cruelty in his vile, racist “war on migrants.” 15 men are still held at Guantánamo, although none under circumstances that are acceptable in a country that claims to respect the law. Six are held indefinitely without charge or trial, while the nine others are caught up, in various ways, in a trial system, the military commissions, that is haunted by the US’s use of torture and is fundamentally incapable of delivering justice. I’m grateful to everyone who took part in the vigils, both for cutting through the fog of lamentable amnesia that engulfs Guantánamo, and for remembering that it’s a monstrous place where, after 9/11, the law was sent to die, and also for their dedication when so many other horrors are vying for campaigners’ attention; most noticeably, in the US, Trump’s aggression towards Venezuela and the monstrous abuses being committed in Minneapolis by ICE agents.

My report about the important news that the British government has reached a “substantial” out-of court financial settlement with Guantánamo prisoner and CIA torture victim Abu Zubaydah, to prevent further public disclosure of their complicity in his torture in CIA “black sites” from 2002 to 2006, prior to his transfer to Guantánamo, where he has been held ever since without charge or trial. The settlement relates to information first disclosed in a rare and frank Parliamentary investigation into British complicity in 2018, when it was revealed that the UK intelligence services had fed questions for Abu Zubaydah to US interrogators, even though they knew that he was being tortured. The payout was made to prevent full disclosure of the details after the Supreme Court ruled in Abu Zubaydah’s favor in a case decided in December 2023. Unfortunately, the settlement will do nothing to secure Abu Zubaydah’s release from Guantánamo. Although the US authorities long ago walked back from claims that he was a significant member of Al-Qaeda, which they made after his capture, and has never charged him with a crime, he continues to be held at Guantánamo, one of three “forever prisoners” detained indefinitely. This is in spite of two European Court of Human Rights rulings, in 2014 and 2018, condemning his torture in “black sites” in Poland and Romania, which also led to significant financial settlements, and a devastating opinion issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2023, which called for his release and reparations for his suffering during his long and arbitrary imprisonment. Under Donald Trump, however, when an unarmed 37-year old mother and US citizen murdered by an ICE agent is described as a “domestic terrorist” by senior administration officials, there can be no real likelihood that a torture victim slandered as a terrorist for years, and still routinely referred to as a “terror suspect”, will be freed. As his ordeal continues, we must all reflect on how, while three governments have paid him significant amounts of money for their complicity in his torture, no mechanism exists that can compel his actual torturers to free him.

Promoting the global vigils this weekend, on Saturday January 10 and Sunday January 11, marking the unforgivable 24th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, where 15 men are still held, although none are detained on anything resembling a legally sound basis. Six are held without charge or trial, six face charges in a broken trial system, the military commissions, that are incapable of delivering justice, one is in legal limbo after being judged mentally unfit to stand trial, another, severely disabled, agreed to a plea deal, and another is serving a life sentence in solitary confinement after a one-sided trial 17 years ago in which he refused to mount a defense. Please join us if you find this ongoing but largely forgotten injustice intolerable, and if you can’t be present in person, feel free to join us by sending in a photo with the Close Guantánamo campaign’s poster marking how long Guantánamo will have been open on January 11 — 8,767 days — as part of an ongoing photo campaign we’ve been running every 100 days, and on the anniversaries of the prison’s opening, since 2018.

Marking 800 days of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, I point out how, although the relentless carpet-bombing stopped with the ceasefire deal two months ago, nothing else has improved for the Palestinians, and I condemn the western media for moving on, by returning to Joe Biden’s visit to Israel in October 2023, in which he described the attacks on October 7 as equivalent to 15 9/11s. I explain that, after 800 days, the Palestinians have suffered the equivalent of 3,500 9/11s, and that, if the number of deaths in Gaza were scaled up to reflect a proportionate death toll in the US, it would mean that ten million Americans would have been killed. The western media’s complacency is also damning because Israel breaks the ceasefire on an almost daily basis, and has also refused to honor its commitment to allow 600 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza on daily basis, leaving the Palestinian people still short of food, medical supplies and fuel, with no provision whatsoever for reconstruction, and, crucially, living in makeshift tents that provide no protection against the kinds of extreme winter weather that recently hit Gaza via Storm Byron. I also condemn the west’s lack of interest in Israel’s stalled military withdrawal from Gaza, in which, instead of preparing to withdraw completely as agreed in the ceasefire deal, they are reinforcing the line of their current withdrawal, the so-called “yellow line”, giving them control of 58% of Gaza, into what senior officials have described as a “new border.” Meanwhile, all of Trump’s grandiose plans for an International Stabilization Force and a neo-colonial “Board of Peace” appear to be floundering, as US, EU and Israeli officials attempt to implement plans to establish “compounds” for obedient, screened Palestinians behind the “yellow line”, while doing nothing to address the destruction in the other 42% of the Strip. This is an outcome that seems to be nothing more than a fulfilment of Israel’s plans, earlier this year, to occupy most of Gaza and to herd the remaining population into “concentration camps.” The genocide isn’t over, and we must not be silent.