When US President Donald Trump returned to the White House last January, he announced plans to turn the US military base at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp into a massive detention center. But a year later, the detention center sits mostly empty, documents show.
Citing internal government documents and information provided to Congress, CBS News reported Wednesday that Trump’s plan to turn the base into a massive detention center to house nearly 30,000 detainees facing deportation had only six immigration detainees as of May 11. This despite a highly publicized operation estimated to cost the US military over $70 million.
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The US president’s plan to turn a naval base in Cuba into a detention center was part of his aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants in the country. All six detainees are Haitian nationals, according to federal documents, and more than 100 flights to 832 immigration detainees have been transferred to the base over the past year.
Government employees outnumber detainees at Guantánamo
Reports indicate that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay has a significantly higher number of government employees assigned to the immigration operation than detainees. This week, government employees outnumbered detainees roughly 100 to one.
Figures provided to Congress show that the Department of Defense has deployed 522 personnel to support immigration detention operations at the Guantánamo Bay detention center. Internal federal documents also show that approximately 60 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and other non-military personnel are assigned to the mission.
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Trump’s immigration detention effort cost $73 million
The U.S. military now expects the Guantánamo detention mission to cost about $73 million, according to information the Defense Department shared with Elizabeth Warren in April. The revised number is significantly higher than the earlier public estimate of $40 million.
In January 2025, when Trump announced plans to establish the detention center, he also said officials would create 30,000 detention beds at Guantánamo. However, internal documents revealed that the immigration detention facility’s capacity is limited to about 400 beds. As of May 11, less than two percent of beds were occupied.
Detention center faces scrutiny over rising costs
Along with the numbers shared with Congress, the documents provide a clearer picture of the controversial and largely secretive operation to hold civilian immigration detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a facility that became infamous after 9/11 for allegations of abuse, torture and due process violations involving terror suspects held indefinitely.
Senator Warren, who received the estimated cost of operating the detention center, accused Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of “wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on a cruel immigration agenda” in an interview with CBS News.
Criminal illegal aliens not welcome in US: DHS
In a statement released Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Lauren Bis said: “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, you could end up in Guantanamo Bay, CECOT or a third country. Our message is clear: illegal aliens are not welcome in the US.”
The Trump administration has released almost no details about its operation to hold people awaiting deportation at Guantánamo Bay. Before the second Trump administration, the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, used a detention camp in Cuba to hold some migrants detained at sea, including tens of thousands of Haitians during the Clinton administration. However, after Trump’s return to the White House in February 2025, officials began sending groups of detainees arrested by ICE in the country to Guantánamo to be held pending deportation.
The Trump administration is sending a wide variety of detainees to Guantánamo
While the Trump administration initially promised to send only the “worst” detainees and “high-priority criminal aliens” to Guantanamo, recent reports have revealed that this is not the case. The detention center now holds both migrants with alleged gang or criminal histories and detainees categorized as “low risk” because they have little or no criminal record.
With only a handful of detainees currently held at the base, despite projected spending in the tens of millions of dollars, critics question whether the controversial effort serves as an effective immigration tool or merely a political symbol of the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
