On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum directing the federal government to prepare the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to potentially house tens of thousands of migrants. The memorandum instructs the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to create additional detention space at Guantanamo for “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”
Trump highlighted that there are currently 30,000 beds available at Guantanamo to detain the most dangerous criminal migrants. He stated that this expansion would double the detention capacity immediately.
The memorandum follows the signing of the Laken Riley Act, the first major legislative success of Trump’s second term. The act mandates the detention of undocumented migrants who have been charged with certain crimes, and it was passed with bipartisan support in Congress earlier this month. Trump stated that these actions would help eliminate migrant crime in American communities.
Trump’s top immigration advisers later revealed that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility would be managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Border czar Tom Homan explained that the plan is to expand existing migrant centers, with oversight from the migrant center in Miami. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added that the Guantanamo base could be reserved for detaining the “worst of the worst” migrants.
Guantanamo Bay, known for its detention camp for terrorism suspects, also has a separate facility for processing migrants. The Biden administration had previously considered using this facility to process Haitian migrants fleeing worsening conditions in their country, and the U.S. military had also prepared the site to host migrants escaping the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
However, a U.S. official pointed out that the Guantanamo Bay facilities are not ready to accommodate up to 30,000 migrants. The official noted that while the base had the capacity for this number in the 1990s, it no longer does. Additionally, the official stated that accommodating such a large number of migrants would require bringing in significantly more military staff.
The Cuban government strongly criticized Trump’s plan, with President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemning the decision to imprison thousands of migrants at Guantanamo. He described it as an act of brutality, accusing the U.S. of forcibly expelling migrants and placing them near the notorious detention facilities known for torture and illegal detention.
