What We Know About the Month-Old Migrant Mission at Guantánamo Bay
In little over a month, the Trump administration has moved fewer than 300 men from an immigration holding site in Texas to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay.
As of this past weekend, 40 migrants were at the base in Cuba. In some instances they have spent just days there, before being sent back to the United States without explanation.
On Jan. 29, President Trump said the base would receive as many as 30,000 migrants awaiting deportation. The Defense and Homeland Security Departments began putting up tents for the expected arrivals, but the encampments are not yet open.
Here are some of the things we have learned about the migrant mission so far.
Is Guantánamo ready for 30,000 migrants?
For now, the operation can hold just 225 immigration detainees at a time, according to a briefing provided to members of Congress who visited the base on Friday.
A small dormitory-style building near the airport can house 50 men. The remainder could be held in a Pentagon prison facility, called Camp 6, that until January held people suspected of being members of Al Qaeda who were arrested during the war against terrorism.
But construction on a vast tent city was halted weeks ago. U.S. forces and contractors installed about 195 tents that each has space for 10 to 12 cots, but nobody is occupying them.
'It seems clear there's no plan to get to 30,000 that's workable in any way,' said Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, who toured the facilities on Friday as part of a bipartisan delegation from the House Armed Services Committee.
The tents currently do not meet basic Homeland Security health and safety needs for two reasons: They lack air conditioning, and mold has appeared inside some of them. More security measures are also needed in the tent area before it is ready to house individuals whom the Trump administration describes as 'criminal aliens.'
A contractor has been found to upgrade the tents but no work has started, Ms. Jacobs said the delegation was told.
What do we know about the migrants?
At least 20 aircraft brought about 270 migrants to the base from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in El Paso between Feb. 4 and March 7. The first 178 were Venezuelans. All but one of them were cleared out on Feb. 20, flown to Honduras and then deported home. Another 58 were transferred back to the United States — 10 to Texas and the rest to an ICE site in Louisiana.
Members of Congress were told that all of those held there this past weekend had final deportation orders and were from 20 different countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guinea, Venezuela and Vietnam. Little is known about why these men in particular were chosen from the more than 40,000 immigration detainees who were in Homeland Security custody throughout the United States last week.
How big and expensive is the operation?
More than 1,000 security forces and civilians combined are assigned to the operation at Guantánamo Bay, including soldiers, sailors and Marines, ICE agents, contractors and members of the Coast Guard, the military has said.
Some of the troops are military police who had been guarding U.S. service members at a brig-like facility at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. Others are members of the 36th Medical Group out of Fort Bragg, N.C.
The operation has so far cost $16 million, Ms. Jacobs said the delegation was told. It was not clear whether that figure included charter and military flights, she said.
Why have so few migrants been held there?
The administration may be recognizing that the base is less than an ideal way station.
The tent city concept that the military was implementing for Mr. Trump's order was designed to shelter people from Caribbean nations who had fled political unrest or a natural disaster, as a humanitarian relief project. The administration says the men it is deporting are 'criminal aliens' who need stricter security measures.
On March 2, 48 of the migrants who were sent there from Texas were suddenly transferred to ICE facilities near Alexandria, La., a major deportation hub. It is not known whether they remain in ICE custody or were subsequently deported.
What don't we know about the operation?
Many aspects of the operation have not been made public.
For example, ICE sent nine migrants back to El Paso on Feb. 26, a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was at Guantánamo and observed nine migrants being led off a C-130 transport from El Paso during his visit.
On March 4, ICE said it could not comment on that question 'due to pending civil litigation.'
Some immigration advocates and civil liberties groups have asked a federal judge to order the administration to stop its 'cruel, unnecessary and illegal transfers to and detention at Guantánamo.' A court hearing is scheduled for Friday.
Also unknown are the costs of using chartered aircraft to shuttle migrants to and from Guantánamo Bay.
ICE has reported the figure at '$6,929 to $26,795 per flight hour, depending on aircraft requirements' for a 'special high-risk charter,' and $8,577 per flight hour for a daily scheduled charter. ICE spokesmen have said most of the migrants sent to Guantánamo are 'high-threat' detainees.
The government has used the Global X charter firm to shuttle people between Texas, Cuba and Louisiana. But it is not known when the hourly fee begins — after it arrives at a U.S. base to pick up, or when it leaves a hub in Miami to fly to the base.
In contrast, the Pentagon estimates the cost of operating a C-17 cargo plane, which has been used twice to transfer migrants to Guantánamo, at about $28,000 an hour and the slower C-130 J, which was used for more than a dozen flights, at $20,000 an hour.
Is there a fear factor?
At the pace of detentions so far, Ms. Jacobs said, there has been no need to house the detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
'It's entirely for the optics,' she said, to look tough and instill fear to deter people who are considering entering the United States illegally.
When Mr. Hegseth visited the base, he said: 'I think the message is clear: If you break the law, if you are a criminal, you could find your way at Guantánamo Bay. You don't want to be at Guantánamo Bay, which is where we housed Al Qaeda after 9/11.'
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