The first U.S. military aircraft carrying detained migrants to Guantanamo Bay departed Tuesday, marking the beginning of a policy shift under President Donald Trump’s administration to use the naval base in Cuba for large-scale migrant detention.
Trump has directed the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expand the migrant detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, aiming to house more than 30,000 migrants.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that the initial flight carried between nine and ten individuals.
McLaughlin described them as “highly dangerous criminal aliens” but did not provide further details. The use of military aircraft for deportations has already been implemented for removals to Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, and India.
The Pentagon has outlined plans to deport over 5,000 migrants currently in U.S. custody in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California. However, military deportation flights remain costly. A recent flight to Guatemala was estimated to cost at least $4,675 per migrant, according to Reuters.
Trump has increasingly involved the military in immigration enforcement, deploying additional troops to the border, using military aircraft for deportations, and repurposing military bases to house detainees.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has not confirmed whether families, women, or children will be housed at Guantanamo Bay but stated that detentions there would comply with U.S. law.
Guantanamo Bay already has a migrant facility separate from its high-security prison for terrorism suspects. The site has previously been used to hold Haitian and Cuban migrants intercepted at sea.
The administration has not disclosed the cost of expanding Guantanamo’s migrant housing. The high-security prison, originally established in 2002 to detain foreign militants after the Sept. 11 attacks, has been widely criticized for human rights concerns. In 2023, a United Nations expert condemned conditions at the facility as cruel and inhumane under international law.
Fifteen detainees remain in the prison, which Trump has vowed to keep open, reversing efforts by previous administrations to close the site.
