Trump preparing Guantanamo facilities for 30,000 illegal migrants

(Patria) - US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he will order the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to prepare a migrant facility in Guantanamo for up to 30,000 people.

The US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, already houses a facility for migrants – separate from the high-security US prison for foreigners suspected of terrorism, which has been used intermittently for decades, including for housing Haitians and Cubans picked up at sea.

Housing tens of thousands of migrants at the base would expand the Pentagon's role in Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, Reuters reported.

"Today, I am also signing an executive order directing the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing a migrant facility for 30,000 people at Guantanamo Bay," Trump said at the White House.

He said the facility would be used to "detain the worst criminal illegal aliens who threaten the American people. Some of them are so bad that we don't even think countries will take them back, and we don't want them coming back to us, so we will send them to Guantanamo."

The Guantanamo detention facility was established in 2002 by then-President George W. Bush to detain foreign militant suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The prison currently holds fifteen detainees. The migrant facility is separate from the detention center at the base.

Pro-refugee groups have called for the closure of the Guantanamo migrant facility and for Congress to investigate alleged abuses. The International Refugee Assistance Project stated in a 2024 report that detainees described unhygienic conditions, families with young children housed with single men, lack of access to confidential phone calls, and absence of educational services for children.

On Tuesday, the US military announced it would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants at Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado.

The decision comes in addition to US military deportations of migrants from the country and the deployment of just over 1,600 active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border following Trump's emergency declaration on immigration last week.