Welcome to Andy Worthington

I celebrate the welcome news that Donald Trump’s use of Guantánamo to hold Venezuelan migrants as part of his cynical and cruel “war on migrants” seems to have come to an abrupt end, less than a month since it was first announced. On Thursday, 178 men were held in total — 51 in the existing Migrant Operations Center, established in the 1990s to hold migrants intercepted at sea, and 127 in Camp 6 of the “war on terror” prison. While the legality of the entire enterprise was extremely dubious, the use of Camp 6 was glaringly illegal, as the legislation establishing the prison’s existence in January 2002 (the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force) only ever justified its use for those seized in connection with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces, with specific reference to the 9/11 attacks. On Thursday, after a court hearing in response to a challenge by rights groups including the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, all but one of these men were flown back to Venezuela via Honduras, with the remaining man flown back to detention on the US mainland. It is to be hoped that this is the end of this particularly malign and lawless project, and that it was meant to be an act of “performative cruelty” on Trump’s part to appeal to his base, but it is, sadly, all too typical of an administration that, on as many fronts as possible, is intent on pushing a narrative that the president should be able to do whatever he wants, unrestrained by any of the checks and balances on presidential power that are part of the Constitution.

My detailed analysis of the latest disturbing news regarding Donald Trump’s “war on migrants”, and, specifically, his use of Guantánamo, where, as of February 12, 98 Venezuelan migrants had been sent from the US mainland, with 45 of them being held in the Migrant Operations Center used since the 1990s, and 53 in Camp 6 of the notorious “war on terror” prison, after the three remaining “low-value detainees” — all long approved for release, but still held — were moved into the neighboring Camp 5, where the other remaining prisoners, 12 “high-value detainees”, are also held. The legality of sending any migrant from the US mainland to Guantánamo is extremely dubious, but it is beyond doubt that holding any of these men in the “war on terror” prison is absolutely illegal, because the authorization for holding prisoners there, passed after the 9/11 attacks, stipulates that they can only be people accused of involvement with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces, in connection with 9/11. Framing this in the context of Trump’s wider “war on migrants”, I analyze the cynical comparisons being deliberately made with the “war on terror”, I examine the lawsuit submitted last week seeking access to the prison for lawyers representing the migrants, and I also examine the stories that have emerged of three of these men, which reveal the same sweeping generalizations and distortions that were used to demonize Muslims in the “war on terror.” As with the almost entirely non-existent terrorists at Guantánamo, beginning 23 years ago, the migrants seem not to be “the worst of the worst”, as the Trump administration suggests, but entirely unconnected with any kind of criminal activity — one being a car mechanic, and another a barber — who were doing nothing more than trying, with the odds stacked against them, as for so many migrants, simply to get into the US to work.

Photos from, and my report about the coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place across the US and in London, Brussels and Mexico City on February 5, 2025, and the week after. The vigils have been taking place on the first Wednesday of every month for the last two years, and will continue under Donald Trump, especially as he has now shocked the world by illegally sending migrants to the prison as part of the vile “war on migrants” that he launched when he took office.

My analysis of, and condemnation of Donald Trump’s deranged press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu last week, when he called for the ethnic cleansing or forced displacement of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, framing it as a humanitarian move, and also, to everyone’s surprise, called for the US takeover of Gaza to develop it as “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Reassuringly, Trump’s performance galvanized support around the world for the Palestinians, more noticeably than at any time in the last 16 months, although his proposals are not only a complete affront to international law; they also undermine the ceasefire deal that he was instrumental in finalizing, via his Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just three weeks ago. I explain how the ceasefire deal, as I describe it, “isn’t something that can be tossed aside as an irrelevance, just because Trump wants to be seen as a humanitarian ethnic cleanser, and a conquering real estate developer”, and I express my hope that the ceasefire will hold, that international pressure will be applied to stop the escalation of Israel’s aggression in the West Bank, and that Israel, fundamentally fatigued and isolated as a result of its 15-month genocide, will realize that the only lasting solution is “for the Palestinians to be free to establish their own autonomous state in Gaza and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem — the only just solution, and the only guarantee of a lasting peace now as it has been for the last 58 years.”

In a disturbing development involving Guantánamo and Donald Trump’s “war on migrants”, it has emerged that ten Venezuelans seized on the US mainland and flown to Guantánamo are not being held in the migrant detention facility that has been used for migrants intercepted at sea since the 1990s, but are being held instead in Camp 6 of the “war on terror” prison, established in 2002. While the legality of sending migrants to the Guantánamo naval base has not been established, it is abundantly clear that no authority whatsoever exists to justify imprisoning migrants in the “war on terror” prison — even those, like these men, who are accused of involvement in the Tren de Aragua gang, designated as a terrorist group. As the Center for Victims of Torture explained in an important briefing yesterday, only those allegedly involved with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces, in connection with the 9/11 attacks, can be held at Guantánamo according to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which justified its creation. As CVT added, the AUMF “does not authorize military detention of migrants, criminals or anyone broadly designated as a ‘terrorist’ or member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” As lawyers begin to prepare legal challenges, it seems inconceivable that the Trump administration can defend its actions — but these are such troubling times that nothing about the law seems certain anymore, as Trump seeks to position himself as thoroughly unaccountable.

My detailed examination of Donald Trump’s cynical and provocative announcement, last week, that he had issued an executive order for the massive expansion of an existing migrant detention facility on the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay to hold 30,000 migrants as part of a monstrous “war on migrants” that has been unfolding since he took office just two weeks ago. I look at how Trump drew on the use of the facility to hold, at one point, 25,000 Haitian and Cuban migrants in the 1990s, and also at how he is using the proximity of the nearby “war on terror” prison to suggest that the migrants are “terrorists”, who should be held without rights, and how officials in his administration have reinforced this notion by describing those to be sent to the facility as “the worst of the worst.” I also examine the deeply troubling legal basis — or the lack of it — when it comes to holding migrants at Guantánamo, which has long been used by the US government as a “law-free zone”, and question who it is intended for, when Trump has already massively expanded the use of “expedited removal” to allow immigration enforcement agents in the US to remove undocumented migrants and send them back to their home countries without being able to meet with a lawyer or have any kind of immigration hearing. This is especially troubling as reports emerge of the first arrivals at the migrant facility, and I wonder, in particular, if Trump will, as I describe it, seek to create “a new law that would explicitly endorse holding undocumented migrants at Guantánamo indefinitely on the basis that they pose a direct threat to the US and its security as ‘invaders’ or ‘terrorists.’”

In my latest long read about Israel and Palestine, I celebrate, unreservedly, the triumph of the Palestinians over unimaginable adversity, as, via the terms of the ceasefire deal agreed on January 15, a million civilians began a “Great March of Return” from the south, where they had been exiled for up to 15 months, to their shattered homes in the north. This return, ending the four-month long “Generals’ Plan” for the erasure of northern Gaza, along with the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the Netzarim Corridor, which separates the north from the south, confirms the failure of Israel’s military aims, beyond its depraved determination to kill as many civilians as possible, demonstrating how every “war” — even one I describe as a “one-sided aerial pogrom lasting 15 months” — ends either with compromise, or with conquest and surrender, and with the compromises of the ceasefire deal clearly signalling the way forward, now that Israel’s seemingly endless genocidal fury has run its course. As Hamas officials once more begin to administer life in the Strip, I examine how the only way forward now is for Israel to drop its insistence that Hamas “can play no role” in Gaza’s post-war future, to recognize it as the administrative government, and to allow negotiations to proceed towards granting independence for Gaza via elections in which the Palestinian people themselves can decide who they want to represent them.

My analysis of the hostage releases that took place as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal on Sunday, when three young Israeli hostages were freed, in exchange for 90 Palestinian women and children. Predictably, the western media focused almost exclusively on the Israelis, reinforcing the notion, entrenched over the last 15 months, that Palestinian lives have no value to western politicians and the mainstream media. In fact, almost all of those released had never been charged with a crime, and many had only been seized and “disappeared” into Israel’s extensive prison network of brutal and fundamentally lawless prisons for Palestinians because of social media posts or taking part in protests, making them, in quite a fundamental manner, hostages as well. The west’s indifference not only fails to credit Palestinian women and children with stories worth recounting; it also fails to examine or hold Israel to account for a truly repulsive prison system in which over 10,000 Palestinians are currently held, many without charge or trial, and many others under “administrative detention”, which can be endlessly renewed every six months without any trial ever taking place. I also reiterate my hope that, because the hostage releases are phased over the next three months at least, Netanyahu cannot seriously contemplate resuming the genocide in Gaza that many still want, especially as the devastation in Gaza becomes ever more apparent, and, hopefully, as international bodies are allowed in to to assist with the enormous humanitarian requirements of the surviving population, and to begin the plans for its reconstruction.

As the ceasefire in Gaza enters its third day, I report on what must be the almost unimaginable relief of Palestinians now that the relentless fear of sudden death has come to an end, but how they now face the new challenges of finding out whether or not their homes have survived, and searching for the remains of their loved ones, buried in the rubble or shot in the streets. While I hope that the release of hostages in stages over the next 18 weeks means that Israel cannot resume its deadly violence, I also note the vital return of humanitarian aid, but point out how it also needs to be accompanied by foreign support in rebuilding Gaza’s destroyed hospitals and healthcare system, and the almost unthinkable task of reconstruction in general — not just for its own sake, but also as another crucial obstacle to any attempts by Israel to think that it can resume the policies of extermination that it has been inflicting on Gaza for the last 15 months.

The video of the powerful and poignant online discussion about Guantánamo, hosted by New America, which took place on January 14, marking the 23rd anniversary of the opening of the prison three days earlier, featuring myself, Tom Wilner and Karen Greenberg, and moderated by Peter Bergen. Also included: a link to my one-hour interview with the activist Margaret Flowers for her “Clearing the FOG” podcast on Popular Resistance.