There was no mass migration to stop, no wave to contain. The force deployed to the Guantánamo naval station in early February, under orders from President Donald Trump to prepare for an influx of up to 30,000 migrants, is now overseeing an empty staging ground. On Monday, only 32 migrants were in custody at the site—housed in permanent structures built years ago.
The tents erected hastily at the outset of the operation have been taken down. The cots packed away. But the personnel remains: over 700 uniformed troops and contractors on site, creating a ratio of 22 personnel for every migrant held.
What was envisioned as a high-capacity crisis response has, in practice, become a costly and underutilized mission. According to data cited by The New York Times, a total of 497 migrants have passed through the base since February 4, none of whom were housed in the $3 million tent facility. Internal estimates from the Department of Defense put the cost of the operation’s first phase at approximately $40 million.
The ballooning costs and lack of detainees have sparked strong backlash on Capitol Hill. “This is an economically unsustainable mission, legally questionable, and undermining basic due process protections,” wrote Senators Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) in a letter sent Friday to the Department of Government Efficiency, requesting a formal audit into potential fraud or waste. “It’s a staggering misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
The legal framework for the operation was outlined in a memorandum of understanding signed on March 7 by the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. It authorizes the detention at Guantánamo of individuals with alleged ties to transnational criminal groups or drug trafficking operations—people the administration labels as “dangerous,” though such designations are based on ICE profiling rather than criminal convictions.
Unlike previous Guantánamo detention efforts—in the 1990s, Haitian and Cuban families intercepted at sea were housed there in a humanitarian context—this new arrangement has no family shelters and no emphasis on aid. It is strictly a law enforcement operation.
According to a Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the dismantled tents—seen prominently during Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s high-profile visit to the base on February 7—have been logged and stored in case they are needed in the future. But at present, there are no plans to house tens of thousands of detainees. The current mandate envisions “dozens, not thousands” of ICE detainees at any given time.
Meanwhile, deportations have proceeded quietly and steadily. Of the 497 migrants held at the base since early February, 178 were Venezuelan nationals who were later flown to Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras and transferred onto Venezuelan-bound charter flights. On April 23, a flight originating in Texas made a stop at Guantánamo to pick up one Venezuelan detainee and proceeded to deliver 174 deportees—men and women—to Soto Cano. On the same day, 42 other individuals, whose nationalities were not disclosed, remained in custody at the base.
Another 93 migrants from Nicaragua were repatriated on three charter flights conducted on April 3, 16 and 30.
Two other deportation flights, conducted on March 31 and April 13, are now at the center of a federal court review. The operations may have involved the unlawful transfer of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, in violation of a Massachusetts district court order barring the Department of Homeland Security from removing individuals to third countries without notifying their attorneys or providing the chance to challenge the transfer.
“U.S. law guarantees that individuals at risk of harm in a third country be given the opportunity to contest their removal in court,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and one of the attorneys involved in the case.
That controversy has deepened following revelations of a reported agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador: in exchange for a financial fee, the Salvadoran government would detain deported Venezuelans in local prisons, effectively facilitating the Trump administration’s removals without public scrutiny.
The Department of Justice, defending the operation, argues that the March 31 flight was conducted by the military under Pentagon authority, and is therefore outside the jurisdiction of DHS and the judge’s order. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy has since demanded the government release full documentation on the flights and all internal communications related to the transfers.
In the background looms the larger question of feasibility. Defense officials acknowledge that housing 30,000 migrants at Guantánamo would require the deployment of more than 9,000 service members and immigration agents—a logistical undertaking involving housing, food, transportation, and security at a scale no longer being contemplated.
For now, the plan appears to have quietly receded. Even the administration that once championed it no longer seems intent on seeing it through.
