The Trump administration plans to transfer at least 9.000 undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay, US media reported.
The migrants, believed to include hundreds of Europeans, will be housed for a short period at a US naval base in Cuba before being deported to their home countries.
In January, US President Donald Trump ordered the expansion of the Guantanamo Bay migrant detention centre, which is believed to currently house around 500 people, with the aim of accommodating as many as 30.000.
But why does America have such a facility on Cuban territory and what do we know about it?
What is the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay used for?
Guantanamo Bay is one of the most expensive military bases run by America, and probably the most controversial.
It became notorious as a prison for suspected terrorists captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and many detainees were held there for years without being formally charged or tried.
Moreover, Guantanamo Bay was chosen as the location for the prison in part because it is not on American soil, which allowed the US government to bypass domestic legal protections.
- Trump's crackdown on illegal immigrants: Who is being targeted?
- Could Trump really deport millions?
- What America would look like without immigrants
The base held 800 prisoners at its peak, but it currently houses 15 foreign nationals suspected of terrorism, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man accused of masterminding the attacks on the USA on September 11, 2001.
Several Democratic presidents, including Barack Obama, have vowed to abolish prison, but have not kept their promise.
Guantanamo has also long been used to house migrants in a separate area from the military prison, a practice criticized by some human rights groups.
The US government has been using Guantanamo since the 1970s to 'process' (interrogate) people intercepted at sea, particularly Cubans, Haitians and Dominicans.
The largest number of migrants were housed there during the 1990s, when a coup in Haiti led to tens of thousands of people fleeing the military on overcrowded boats.
Then, in 1994, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced that anyone who wanted to leave the island could do so without any obstacles, and tens of thousands of people took to the sea, causing the so-called "raft crisis."
Currently, the facility is known as the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center (GMOC) and occupies only a small portion of the former barracks.
That will need to be expanded significantly to accommodate the 30.000 migrants envisioned by the Trump administration.
In April, satellite images showed that large parts of the camp had been removed.
On January 29, Trump signed into law the so-called Laken Riley Act, which requires that undocumented immigrants arrested for theft or violent crimes must remain in prison until their trial begins.
The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student who was killed by a Venezuelan migrant last year.
It was an early legislative victory for the administration, which had promised during the campaign to tighten border controls.
Trump has previously suggested that migrants could be transferred there directly after being intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard and that the "highest" standards of detention would be applied.
He claims the facility will double America's capacity to hold undocumented migrants.
The Guantanamo Bay migrant detention facilities will be used for the "worst of the worst," administration officials said, a term used by both Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and "border czar" Tom Homan.
The White House statement was less specific, saying the expanded facility would "provide additional detention space for high-priority foreign criminals who are unlawfully present in the United States and to meet the associated immigration needs."
It is not known how much the building will cost or when it will be completed.
The Pentagon spent about $38 million on deportation and detention operations at Guantanamo Bay in the first month of this year alone, a Defense Department official said.
Asked by reporters at the White House in January, Noem said only that the money would be allocated through "reconciliation and appropriations."
- One of the last living Alcatraz inmates on Trump's plan to reopen the prison
- Five things you might not know about the famous Alcatraz prison
- Why Paris is building a high-security prison in French Guiana
What are the reactions to Trump's plan?
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called Trump's plan a "brutal act."
"The new US government has announced the detention of thousands of forcibly expelled migrants at the Guantanamo naval base, located in illegally occupied Cuban territory, next to prisons known for torture and illegal detention," Diaz-Canel wrote on the social network X.
"The obvious concern for anyone who cares about human rights is that migrants detained at Guantanamo could easily be denied due process and held there indefinitely," says Dan Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon.
Deepa Alagesan, senior supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), described Trump's plan to increase the number of migrants detained at Guantanamo Bay as a "frightening possibility."
In a 2024 report, IRAP accused the US government of secretly holding migrants in "inhumane" conditions indefinitely after they were apprehended at sea.
"These refugees are being held indefinitely in prison conditions."
"They have no access to the outside world and are imprisoned in a penal system run by the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and other private contractors, with little or no transparency or accountability," the report says.
Vince Warren, executive director of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, an advocacy group that has represented dozens of men detained at the base since 9/11, said the decision "should horrify us all."
The center "sends a clear message: migrants and asylum seekers present themselves as a new terrorist threat, deserving of being sidelined in an island prison, separated from legal and social services and support," the statement said.
Migrants who contacted IRAP, other detained refugees, and former employees of the Guantanamo Bay Migrant Operations Center (GMOC) described the facility as "dilapidated, rundown, and with sewage problems."
"Detainees are denied confidential telephone conversations, even with their lawyers, and are punished if they dare share details of their abuse," the organization said.
Why does America have a base in Cuba?
America leased Guantanamo Bay from Cuba for more than a century, a practice that dates back to the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898.
After America defeated Spain, Cuba gained independence under terms dictated by America, among them the right to interfere in Cuban affairs and the right to lease land for a naval base.
America and Cuba signed a lease agreement in 1903 that gave America control of Guantanamo Bay.
The agreement granted America a permanent lease of the base, in exchange for an annual rent of $2.000 in gold coins.
This amount was later modified in 1934 to a value equal to $4.085, but the payment remained largely symbolic.
Cuba opposes this lease and systematically refuses nominal American payments.
America recognizes that Cuba retains sovereignty over this small part of the island, but the American presence there has long been a source of tension between Washington and Havana.
Later on Cuban Revolutions In 1959, Fidel Castro's government began demanding the return of Guantanamo, claiming that the lease had been imposed by force and was not valid under international law.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber.
If you have a topic suggestion for us, please contact bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
- Guantanamo survivors, then transferred to Serbia and Albania: "We are still in prison"
- Trump repeated baseless claims that migrants from Haiti eat pets
- 'Don't open that door': 'Red card' helps migrants facing deportation from America
- Brothers released from Guantanamo prison - 20 years behind bars without charges
- The oldest prisoner released from Guantanamo after 20 years
- How the FBI let the masterminds of the September 11th attacks out of their hands
Bonus video:
