Plans to Hold Migrants at Gitmo Hit Snag
Struggling to keep a campaign promise to deport “millions” of migrants, Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) announced shortly after his January 2025 inauguration the construction of new detention space for 30,000 people at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Mar. 2025, p.38.] But the plan immediately ran into logistical roadblocks, and two months later, there were no migrants detained there; 40 who sent after Trump’s announcement had since been returned to the U.S.
The cost of using the base is one roadblock. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts domestically for migrant bed space at about $157 per day each. But the government spent over $211 million to hold suspected terrorists on the Guantanamo base in 2022, meaning it would need to hold 3,682 detainees to be cost-effective—and that’s before figuring the cost of military flights to and from the island. Each of those carries a $226,000 price-tag roundtrip.
The President’s border “czar,” Tom Homan, said that some 46,000 migrants were detained in mid-March 2025 by ICE. But “we ought to be at 65,000,” Homan fumed. There is currently room on the base for just 180 detainees. Another 3,120 could be accommodated in 195 large tents already on site, but those have not been fitted with electricity or air conditioning.
Three of those migrants who were shuttled to and from Guantanamo described invasive strip-searches and long periods held in isolation. ACLU National Prison Project Senior Staff Attorney Eunice Cho called their conditions “horrific, and are far more restrictive, more severe and more abusive than what we would see in a typical immigration detention facility in the United States.” She decried placing military personnel in charge of migrant detention, describing it as a criminal approach to dealing with people who have been charged only with civil violations of immigration law.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem visited Guantanamo in February 2025. Outfitted in a black DHS ballcap and jeans—and wearing what sharp-eyed viewers of footage on the internet called a $50,000 Rolex watch—she quizzed military personnel about what they need to realize Trump’s detention goals on the island, promising to “go back to the President and make sure that he hears the message.”
Source: Washington Post
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