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Just 8 days aft returning to the White House past year, President Trump announced plans to crook the U.S. subject basal successful Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a monolithic detention halfway to clasp 30,000 detainees facing deportation arsenic portion of his assertive crackdown connected amerciable immigration.
But a CBS News reappraisal of interior authorities documents and accusation provided to Congress shows the detention facilities astatine Guantanamo Bay are sitting mostly bare implicit a twelvemonth later, adjacent though the highly publicized cognition is projected to outgo the American subject implicit $70 million.
On May 11, the U.S. authorities was holding conscionable six migration detainees astatine the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, each of them nationals of Haiti, according to national documents obtained by CBS News. Over the past year, the documents show, 832 migration detainees person been transferred to the basal connected 109 flights.
In fact, determination are importantly much authorities employees assigned to the migration detention cognition astatine Guantanamo than detainees, according to the documents. This week, authorities employees outnumbered detainees astir 100 to 1.
Figures provided to Congress bespeak the Department of Defense has 522 unit to assistance with migration detention astatine Guantanamo. The interior national documents amusement determination are 62 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and non-military unit assigned to the mission, too.
Information provided by the Department of Defense to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren successful April besides shows the Guantanamo migration detention effort is expected to outgo $73 million, conscionable for the U.S. military. That is an summation from the antecedently publically reported estimation of $40 million.
Mr. Trump said successful January 2025 that officials would acceptable up 30,000 detention beds astatine Guantanamo. But the interior national documents bespeak the base's capableness to clasp migration detainees is constricted to conscionable 398 beds. On May 11, less than 2% of the beds were occupied.
Together with the numbers provided to Congress, the documents shed airy connected the presumption of the arguable and mostly secretive effort to clasp civilian migration detainees astatine Guantanamo, wherever the indefinite detention of post-9/11 coercion suspects gained infamy implicit allegations of abuse, owed process violations and torture.
In a connection to CBS News, Warren, who received the projected outgo for the Guantanamo operation, accused President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of "wasting billions successful payer funds connected a cruel migration agenda."
CBS News has reached retired to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security for comment, including connected whether the Trump medication plans to proceed the cognition to clasp migrant detainees astatine the naval base.
"Political theater"
In this photograph reviewed by U.S. subject officials, a U.S. worker stands betwixt 2 cells, 1 utilized arsenic a room and the different a gym, wrong the Camp VI detention installation astatine the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval basal successful Cuba connected June 6, 2018.
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File
Publicly, the Trump medication has released scant details astir its cognition to clasp those awaiting deportation astatine the Guantanamo base, which sits connected Cuban onshore that the U.S. has agelong argued is being leased. The Cuban authorities alleges the statement is illegal.
Before the 2nd Trump administration, the U.S. government, nether Republican and Democratic presidents, utilized Guantanamo to location immoderate migrants intercepted astatine sea, including tens of thousands of Haitians during the Clinton administration.
But successful February 2025, officials began sending groups of detainees arrested by ICE successful the U.S. to Guantanamo, truthful they could beryllium held determination pending their deportation. Initially, Mr. Trump and his apical aides vowed to nonstop the "worst" detainees and "high-priority transgression aliens" to Guantanamo. But consequent reporting recovered that was not wholly accurate.
Soon aft the effort started, CBS News revealed Guantanamo was being utilized to clasp some migrants with alleged pack oregon transgression histories, and detainees categorized arsenic "low-risk" due to the fact that they lacked superior transgression records — oregon immoderate astatine all. Then, successful April 2025, CBS News disclosed that the internal authorities memo governing the cognition gave officials wide-ranging discretion to determine who to nonstop to Guantanamo, including the quality to transportation non-criminal detainees there.
Officials person been lodging the detainees considered to beryllium "low-risk" astatine the Migration Operations Center, a barrack-like installation that had antecedently held asylum-seekers intercepted astatine sea. Meanwhile, those deemed to beryllium "high-risk" migration detainees person been detained astatine Camp VI, a conception of the post-9/11 situation analyzable that inactive holds immoderate coercion suspects.
The legality of detaining civilian migration detainees astatine Guantanamo is inactive being litigated. In December, a national justice successful Washington, D.C., recovered successful a preliminary ruling that the migration detention effort astatine Guantanamo was "impermissibly punitive" and apt unlawful, but stopped abbreviated of blocking the operation.
Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who filed the lawsuit, said "the usage of Guantanamo is thing much than governmental theatre similar truthful galore different medication policies."
"Not lone is the Trump administration's usage of Guantanamo unprecedented and illegal, but it serves nary morganatic argumentation extremity fixed the fiscal and logistical burdens of utilizing this notorious subject basal for migration purposes," Gelernt said.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, a erstwhile DHS migration authoritative nether presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the Trump medication acceptable up Guantanamo and different arguable facilities, specified arsenic "Alligator Alcatraz" successful Florida, to propulsion radical successful the U.S. illegally to self-deport and deter others from entering the state unlawfully.
Cardinal Brown said Guantanamo's deterrence effect is hard to measure, beyond the debased levels of amerciable crossings astatine the U.S.-Mexico border. But she said it's wide the cognition has been costly.
"Everything has to beryllium shipped successful there, right? It's not similar we're importing things from Cuba," Cardinal Brown said. "Everything has to travel from a U.S. root to that subject installation. It's going to beryllium much, overmuch much expensive."
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