President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he has directed the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to expand a migrant detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to accommodate up to 30,000 individuals.
The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay already houses a migrant processing center separate from the high-security prison used for foreign terrorism suspects. The facility has been used intermittently for decades, including to detain Haitians and Cubans intercepted at sea.
Trump’s border security adviser, Tom Homan, confirmed Wednesday that the administration will expand the existing facility, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) overseeing operations.
“Today, I’m signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Trump said at the White House.
Trump stated that the facility would be used to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” adding, “Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re going to send them to Guantanamo.”
Following his remarks, Trump signed a memorandum calling for “additional detention space” at the expanded facility, though it did not specify the number of detainees.
Homan later told reporters that the facility would be reserved for the “worst of the worst.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, when asked about the cost of the expansion, said the administration is working with Congress on funding through reconciliation and appropriations.
The Guantanamo Bay detention site was initially established in 2002 under President George W. Bush to hold foreign militant suspects following the September 11, 2001, attacks. While the prison population has declined to 15 detainees, Trump has pledged to keep the facility open, reversing efforts by his predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to shut it down.
The facility has been criticized by human rights organizations for indefinite detention practices, with past allegations of harsh interrogation methods. The migrant detention center is separate from the high-security prison but has also faced scrutiny.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned Trump’s expansion plan as “an act of brutality.”
Pro-refugee organizations have called for the closure of the migrant facility, citing concerns over conditions. A 2024 report by the International Refugee Assistance Project detailed allegations of unsanitary living spaces, families being housed alongside single adults, limited access to legal representation, and a lack of education services for children.
The expansion of the Guantanamo facility comes amid broader immigration enforcement actions by the Trump administration. On Tuesday, the U.S. military announced it would allow ICE to detain migrants at Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado.
The administration has also increased military deportation flights and deployed over 1,600 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border following Trump’s recent emergency declaration on immigration.
The policy shift reflects Trump’s commitment to stricter immigration controls and large-scale detentions as his administration continues to focus on border security and deportation efforts.
