Trump Prepping to Send Thousands Of Immigrants To Guantanamo: Reports
The Trump administration is getting ready to send as many as 9,000 undocumented immigrants to Guantanamo Bay, a detention site that has long been criticized for inhumane conditions, according to reports from Politico and The Washington Post.
The federal government had previously detained suspected terrorists at Guantanamo after the Sept. 11 attacks and faced intense scrutiny for the poor treatment of the people held there. It also used a separate facility for immigrant detention, CNN reports — that facility has also been condemned for its own civil rights abuses.
About 500 immigrants have been held at Guantanamo for varying periods of time since February, according to Politico — a figure the administration is reportedly looking to grow because it's running out of detention space domestically.
The administration's reported actions come after it quietly returned immigrants from Guantanamo to facilities in the U.S. earlier this year while staring down a civil lawsuit contesting its ability to send people there.
A federal judge has since ruled against immigration advocates trying to bar future transfers to Guantanamo, though he's signaled he was open to revisiting the issue if the facility was being used again for new detainees. The administration's reported decision to reconsider use of the facility is also taking place as immigrant enforcement has become a flashpoint and White House officials have urged aggressive action to promote deportations.
The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump claimed that he wanted to detain up to 30,000 immigrants at Guantanamo, a place synonymous with degrading conditions.
In an April 2025 lawsuit, two Nicaraguan immigrants who have been detained there described 'a climate of extreme fear and intimidation where immigrant detainees are afraid to communicate freely with their counsel.' Another class-action lawsuit filed in June also detailed a lack of food and clean clothing.
Citizens of U.S. ally countries such as France, Britain and Germany as well as people from countries Trump has targeted for years, such as Haiti, are among those the administration would send to the prison, per The Washington Post.
Detaining thousands of people would pose significant challenges, Politico reports, with Pentagon officials raising concerns about limited staffing and access to medical care.
In the 1990s, the U.S. government previously used Guantanamo to detain Haitian and Cuban asylum seekers who faced horrific treatment, including a dearth of potable water and food.
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