All of the remaining migrants being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have been moved to Louisiana over the last two days, according to a U.S. official.
In late January, President Donald Trump announced he was signing an executive order “to instruct the departments of Defence and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay.”
But since then, the number of migrants sent to be temporarily held there has only reached the low hundreds, and now the Department of Defence and the Department of Homeland Security are discussing whether to make further use of the base.
U.S. officials confirmed the 195 tents, capable of housing 500 migrants, at Guantanamo Bay did not meet ICE’s requirements for holding migrants, such as having air conditioning and other amenities.
Illegal alien holding tents at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in support of the Department of Defence and Department of Homeland Security mission to expand the Illegal Alien Holding Operations Center during Operation Southern Guard at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Feb. 16, 2025.
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Congressional Delegation (CODEL) visits Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, March 10, 2025. U.S. Army
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said in February that Guantanamo Bay’s high-security prison facility could house “the worst of the worst” criminals being deported.
He called the base “the perfect place to provide for migrants who are traveling out of our country,” including for “hardened criminals.” Hegseth then visited Guantanamo Bay in late February, and a bipartison congressional delegation toured the migrant detention facility on Friday.
However, there are now no more military flights carrying migrants to Guantanamo Bay scheduled for at least the next 48 hours, the official said.
U.S. officials told ABC News it is possible some of the hundreds of U.S. troops sent to the base to help prepare it to house migrants might be relocated to help with the southern border mission in another capacity.
As of Friday, there were 41 migrants at the base awaiting deportation, almost equally split between low threat and high threat, all of whom have now been flown by non-military aircraft on Tuesday and Wednesday to be held in Alexandria, Louisiana, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a processing facility, according to the U.S. official.
“It was clear that this was entirely for optics and the fact that Donald Trump wanted to be able to say that he was sending immigrants to Guantanamo Bay, with all of its history of human rights abuses and with no actual operational value,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Ca., who was part of the congressional delegation at Guantanamo Bay, told ABC News on Wednesday.
Jacobs told ABC News that officials at Guantanamo Bay said it cost $16 million to stand up the migrant camp, noting that each tent allegedly cost $3.1 million to construct despite not being up to DHS standards.
