U.S. forces have begun taking down tents set up as part of President Donald Trump's plan to hold tens of thousands of migrants following its failure to materialize.
Three months after Trump ordered preparations to hold up to 30,000 migrants, mostly in a tent city, fewer than 500 people have been taken to the Cuban enclave, The New York Times reported.
The outlet detailed that no migrants were ever held in the tents in the end and that on Monday 32 people were being kept in buildings in the base. ICE is now set to hold dozens of detainees, rather than thousands. The base is being operated by over 700 people, most of them Army and Marine forces, as well as 100 people employed by ICE as security officers or contractors. The NYT recalled that the Defense Department estimated it spent $40 million on the first month of operations.
The military said it can expand capacity based on need, but other recent actions suggest it won't be the case. Back in March the U.S. Southern Command, which is responsible for military operations at the base, was already making plans to draw down from the roughly 1,000 military personnel deployed there.
The president's plan also faced legal scrutiny from human rights groups that question the constitutionality of sending migrants to Guantanamo. The initial detainees there said they were rarely let outside and that several migrants considered killing themselves or tried to.
The Trump administration had initially characterized the migrants sent to Guantanamo as the "worst of the worst." However, officials later said some of those detained were "low-threat" individuals held at the migrant operations center. The "high-threat" migrants were being held in the military prison.
In early March, civil rights attorneys, led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed a lawsuit against the administration to prevent the transfer of ten individuals from the U.S. to Guantanamo, calling it "a living hell." The lawsuit followed another legal challenge from early February which alleged that detainees were being held without access to legal counsel or communication.
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