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Two months after President Trump ordered his administration to prepare the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay for up to 30,000 migrants, about 400 migrants have been held there at a cost to taxpayers of more than $40 million.
At one point in February, the administration held 178 Venezuelans at the base, the largest group to be kept there at one time. The operation has been staffed with 1,000 government workers, 900 of them members of the U.S. military and the rest immigration service agents or contractors. That means a ratio of five staff members for each migrant in that group.
Senior Pentagon officials testified at Congress this week about the operation. Here are some of the things we know as of now.
Is Guantánamo ready for 30,000 migrants?
No. To hold that many people there, the Pentagon would have to mobilize approximately 9,000-plus service members to Guantánamo to support the Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff running the operation, Adm. Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. Southern Command, told the House Armed Services Committee this week.
“And we have not been told to do that,” he added.
As of last week, the military told Congress that the operation could hold a maximum of 180 migrants between two sites: a building called Camp 6 where suspected members of Al Qaeda and affiliates were once imprisoned, and a dormitory-style facility elsewhere on the base called the Migrant Operations Center.
Why are they using the base now?
Robert G. Salesses, a senior Pentagon official, explained it this way: ICE currently can house about 45,000 “high-threat illegal aliens.” The Homeland Security Department has turned to the Pentagon when it has needed more space for those kinds of detainees.
“So I do think we’ll be continuing to use Gitmo for some time until ICE has more capacity to house high-threat illegal aliens,” he said, using a nickname for the Guantánamo Bay facility.
Who is held there now?
As of Friday, ICE was housing 45 migrants at the base, 36 of them in the prison facility, according to government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the topic is considered sensitive.
All migrants sent to Guantánamo Bay “are on final orders supposedly to head to their ultimate destination,” said Rafael F. Leonardo, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs.
Where have they been sent?
The administration has sent migrants directly from Guantánamo to Venezuela, El Salvador and, most recently, Nicaragua. On Thursday, ICE repatriated 44 Nicaraguan migrants who had been brought to the naval base days earlier.
They were flown on an ICE charter flight that had originated earlier in the day in Louisiana with about 100 other Nicaraguan citizens onboard and delivered to the airport in Managua, the capital, according to people familiar with the transfer who were not authorized by ICE to discuss it. Most of the Nicaraguans held at Guantánamo had been housed at the dormitory-style detention site.
Fewer than half of the migrants sent to Guantánamo since Feb. 4 have been returned to the United States. Some have been deported to countries that included Brazil and Colombia.
What about all those tents the homeland security secretary toured?
They are empty.
Troops set up 195 tents within days of Mr. Trump’s executive order, but they have never been used to house migrants, members of Congress who toured the sites were told.
The tents account for $3 million or more of the $40 million the Defense Department spent on the operation up until March 12.
Security officials concluded that men considered medium- or high-threat risks could not be safely held in tents with cots for 12 to 14 occupants because they lacked the necessary security measures.
Another concern was whether the temporary housing would be safe during hurricane season.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the tents “shouldn’t have been erected in the first place,” calling their use “more political drama than practical necessity.”
Frances Robles contributed reporting from Miami. Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.
