The Trump administration has moved more than 175 men from an immigration holding site in Texas to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay. All have been described as Venezuelans who have been issued final deportation orders. But it is not known why these men in particular were sent there.
Waves of migrants, including thousands of Haitians and Cubans, have been housed at the base over the years. But it is better known as a prison for wartime detainees captured after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Because of that legacy, Guantánamo Bay sometimes evokes the idea of indefinite detention without charge, a legal black hole with no way out.
Here are some of the things we have learned about the migrant mission so far.
Is Guantánamo ready for 30,000 migrants?
On Jan. 29, President Trump ordered the Defense and Homeland Security Departments to prepare the base to receive up to 30,000 migrants.
Satellite imagery shows that tents have been going up near a building that was used for migrant operations in the past.
As of Tuesday, the military said there were about 850 troops and civilians assigned to migrant operations, more than 700 of them in the U.S. military.
With support from the Coast Guard, the military has been guarding and managing the Venezuelans in two separate buildings: the 120-bed Migrant Operations Center near the tents and a 176-cell military prison on the other side of the base for men the Trump administration has profiled as potentially dangerous or more dangerous. As of Wednesday, there were about 175 held there, 127 of whom were considered “high-threat illegal aliens,” according to a Defense Department official, who was not authorized to discuss the operation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Until now, the Migrant Operations Center has been the exclusive domain of the Department of Homeland Security, which has hired contractors to run it. As of last week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of D.H.S. had 10 officers on temporary assignment for the entire migrant mission and plans to send 50 “contract security personnel,” homeland security representatives told Congress.
To expand it to a capacity in the tens of thousands, the administration will need to add more personnel. A military blueprint for the migrant operation shows plans to house more than 3,500 U.S. forces near tent encampments for more than 11,000 migrants.
Who are the men now being held at Guantánamo Bay?
The Trump administration has generally described the men sent to the base as including violent gang members being held for deportation, but has provided no proof.
The administration has not released their names or the specific basis for their planned deportation. But an examination of court records for some of the men, whose names are known, shows they entered the country illegally, for example by crossing the Rio Grande, and were picked up by border guards.
More recently, officials have been describing them as “illegal aliens.”
Are the Venezuelan men the next forever prisoners?
That may depend on whether the Trump administration can make arrangements for the Venezuelan government or another country to receive them.
U.S. officials have described the migrant mission at Guantánamo as a temporary holding site for people with final deportation orders. Complications could include whether individuals have claims to make that they should not be sent home, for example if they made asylum requests that were not fully adjudicated.
Even as Venezuelans arrive at Guantánamo, others have been sent back to Venezuela. On Feb. 10, Venezuela sent two planes to El Paso and picked up about 190 of its citizens, who were also under deportation orders. On the same day, a U.S. military cargo plane transported 15 men to Guantánamo Bay. Those men were put in the 120-bed dormitory.
As for Guantánamo’s terrorism-related detention mission, 780 Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were sent there from 2002 to 2008. Today, only 15 remain. They are held as military prisoners under the president’s war powers authority and are awaiting trial.
Could the migrants use the courtroom built for the Sept. 11 case?
Not without radically changing the law.
The law that created the military commissions system specifically limits its use to war crimes trials of foreign citizens who are members of Al Qaeda or their associates, specifically men held as detainees in the war against terrorism, an international armed conflict.
By U.S. law, the Qaeda prisoners at Guantánamo Bay cannot set foot on American soil.
The Venezuelans at Guantánamo are civilian, domestic prisoners who were taken into custody in the United States or at the southwest border, in a time of peace, and are technically in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. They, like the war prisoners, may be able to challenge their detention in federal court.
But the migrants have not been accused of committing war crimes, and there is nothing prohibiting them from being flown back to the United States to appear in court.
What’s the big deal about U.S. troops guarding migrants at the terrorism prison?
For starters, there is concern about mission creep and the militarization of a civilian security challenge. There is also a question of whether it is legal, or a misappropriation of funds.
The U.S. military has traditionally provided security and support for the Department of Homeland Security in the United States but left the guarding and management of foreign citizens awaiting deportation to civilian immigration service employees and contractors. They operate under different rules, and often have the language skills and experience needed for the job.
At Guantánamo, the Army guards and Navy medics who work at the wartime prison and court were trained for a specific military police mission: housing and caring for long-held detainees from the war against terrorism. These are older men who have been at Guantánamo for 17 years or longer. Army prison guards and Navy medics are now caring for dozens of younger, Spanish-speaking men from immigration detention facilities that operate under different rules.
Also, some of the migrants are held in what could be called double military custody on the hard-to-reach base, whose access is controlled by its Navy commander.
Men who have been profiled as “high-threat illegal aliens” are held in a prison building that until recently held Qaeda suspects. That building is inside a special security zone for wartime detention operations, whose access is controlled by an Army colonel who answers to the U.S. Southern Command.
Do we know how much this will cost?
No, but it is going to be expensive. The tents and cots were already in storage at Guantánamo, in case of a humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean. But most of the provisions, including pallets of drinking water, will have to be airlifted to the base.
Prison and court functions for the war on terrorism operation have cost billions of dollars since 2002. That worked out to $13 million per prisoner per year, according to a 2019 study, including court costs.
But that operation has more fixed costs, with troops arriving on scheduled rotations on charter aircraft and housed in a barrack built for the prison guards.
Now the Pentagon has stepped up air missions to the base using C-17s and other costly Air Force cargo planes, and will need to mobilize, house and train more forces for the new mission.
Is this all part of a messaging strategy?
Certainly, the photos of men in shackles being loaded up on cargo planes to Guantánamo Bay may be sending messages.
Foreigners may be dissuaded from crossing illegally into the United States for fear of ending up at Guantánamo. Trump supporters may also see the operation as delivering on a promise the president made in his first campaign to load up the cells at Guantánamo with “bad dudes.”
Legal challenges have begun.
