The Trump administration is now holding undocumented immigrants from 26 nations and six continents, at the notorious Guantánamo Bay naval base and prison in Cuba, as part of its push to rapidly expand U.S. immigration detention and deportation infrastructure.
There are 72 immigration detainees at the base, 58 of who are classified as high-risk, officials told CBS News.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the detainees are from Brazil, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Russia, Somalia, St. Kitts-Nevis, the United Kingdom, Venezuela and Vietnam.
The facility has previously housed American detainees from the War on Terror, many without trial. It has been home to 663 migrant detainees since February, an official added, well short of the administration’s initial 30,000-detainee goal for the facility.
In June, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to rapidly deport immigrants to third countries beyond their place of origin, which critics say has allowed the government to send migrants to dangerous, war-torn areas where they risk persecution, including South Sudan.
Last month, immigrants’ rights advocates sued the administration over its use of the Guantánamo facility, alleging the government had unlawfully moved detainees out of the country when it brought them to the base, which is on land the U.S. says is leased but Cuba insists be returned.
A former immigration detainee who was held at Gitmo, as the facility has become known, said he was kept in a dark, windowless prison cell with only a bucket for relieving himself, as he heard screams from other deportees, including threats to commit suicide.
“It's a promise the President campaigned on, that if you invade our nation's borders, if you break our country's laws, and if then you further commit heinous, brutal crimes in the interior of our country ... you are going to be deported from this country, and you may be held at Guantánamo Bay,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in February when asked about the allegations.
“These are criminals we are talking about — don't forget that.”
That month, federal officials abruptly emptied out the ranks of immigration detainees held on the naval base, in the midst of a lawsuit from civil rights attorneys demanding access to the facility to offer legal aid to migrants.
At the time, the Department of Justice argued those inside Gitmo don’t have any rights to attorneys or legal assistance, but said there weren’t any detainees inside the facility.
The U.S. has pushed to rapidly expand its detention and deportation capacity, including providing immigration and border officials with about $170 billion in unprecedented funding as part of its spending package.
It has also enlisted facilities with questionable human rights records, including a Salvadoran mega-prison where detainees say they have been tortured and held for months without communication with their families and lawyers, and Alligator Alcatraz, a facility in the Florida Everglades.
