Guantánamo Migrant Operation Has Held Fewer Than 500 Detainees, and None in Tents

The three-month-old operation never expanded to fulfill President Trump’s vision of housing 30,000 at the offshore U.S. base.

American military forces have taken down some of the tents they hurriedly set up on an empty corner of the U.S. naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, three months after President Trump ordered preparations to house up to 30,000 migrants at the base.

No migrants were ever held in the tents, and no migrant surge has ever occurred. On Monday, the operation was housing just 32 migrants, in buildings that were established years ago.

A total of 497 migrants have been held there for just days or weeks, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses the base as a way station to hold small numbers of detainees designated for deportation.

Instead, the Homeland Security and Defense Departments have reached an agreement to house dozens, not thousands, of ICE detainees at the base on any given day. Full costs of the operation have not been disclosed.

The military says it can pivot and expand migrant operations at Guantánamo, depending on need. But the decision to dismantle at least some of the tents demonstrates that the Defense and Homeland Security Departments do not currently plan to house tens of thousands of migrants on the base, as the president envisioned.

The tents and cots that served as a backdrop of the high-profile Feb. 7 visit by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, have been inventoried and stashed for future possible use, according to a Defense Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president’s migrant mission is considered politically sensitive.

Over the weekend, the task force in charge of migrant detention at Guantánamo Bay was holding 32 migrants awaiting deportation and had about 725 staff members, mostly uniformed Army and Marine forces, with 100 employed by ICE as security officers or contractors.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.