More than a year after President Donald Trump announced plans to transform Guantánamo Bay into a detention hub for up to 30,000 migrants, the operation is holding just six detainees while projected military costs have climbed to at least $73 million, according to internal government documents reviewed by CBS News.
The six detainees held at the U.S. naval base as of May 11 were all Haitian nationals, federal documents showed. Over the past year, 832 immigration detainees have been transferred to Guantánamo on more than 100 flights, though many were later returned to the United States.
The operation, known as "Operation Southern Guard," currently has far more personnel than detainees assigned to it, as CBS News points out. Department of Defense figures provided to Congress show 522 military personnel supporting the mission, alongside roughly 60 Immigration and Customs Enforcement and civilian staff. At current levels, government employees outnumber detainees by roughly 100 to 1.
The military's projected costs for the effort have risen from an earlier estimate of $40 million to $73 million, according to information the Pentagon provided to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. A military report reviewed by The Independent earlier this week found the government spent at least $21 million transporting migrants to Guantánamo between January and April, including 46 military flights costing an estimated $26,277 per flight hour.
When Trump announced the plan in January 2025, he said Guantánamo had "30,000 beds to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people." Internal documents now indicate the facility's actual immigration detention capacity is closer to 400 beds. Fewer than 2% were occupied this week.
The administration initially said Guantánamo would house high-priority criminal migrants, but subsequent reporting found detainees included individuals classified as "low-risk," including some without criminal records. Those considered low-risk have been housed at the Migrant Operations Center, while higher-risk detainees were held at Camp VI, part of the military prison complex established after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The legality of detaining civil immigration detainees at Guantánamo remains under challenge in federal court. In a preliminary ruling last year, a federal judge in Washington found the operation was likely "impermissibly punitive," though the judge stopped short of ordering it halted.
DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis defended the policy in a statement to CBS News, saying migrants who enter the U.S. illegally "could end up in Guantanamo Bay, CECOT, or a third country."
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