US military deploys 300 troops to Guantanamo Bay to construct migrant facilities, provide security

Around 300 US military personnel have arrived at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) in southeast Cuba to assist in the construction of makeshift shelters intended to house illegal immigrants deported from the United States. The troops will then provide security for the migrant shelters, the New York Times reported. This comes as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation operations, where the president ordered the military to prepare the island for at least 30,000 deportations.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the thousands of migrants would be housed separately from the military prisoners detained on the base. He also suggested that a golf course on the island could potentially house at least 6,000 additional deported migrants.

On Tuesday, the USS St. Louis shared photographs of its servicemembers supporting the expansion of the base's Migrant Operations Center as part of Operation Southern Guard, a joint operation between the US Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Additionally, the US Southern Command has sent up a Joint Task Force Migrant Operations (JFT-MIGOPS) at the Naval Station to execute the directive, according to a press release.


Naval members from USS St. Louis assist in the construction of the expansion of migrant facilities at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  Photo courtesy: US Southern Command

It is expected that additional Marines and soldiers will arrive on the island in the coming weeks, according to a spokesperson from US Southern Command.

President Trump signed an executive order last week on the matter, explaining that the majority of US deportations to the base will consist of the worst-of-the-worst criminal migrants. "We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people," the president said. "Some of them are so bad we don't trust the countries to hold them because we don't want them coming back, so we're going to send them to Guantanamo."

It would not be the first time that the United States used Guantanamo Bay to house illegal immigrants. In the 1990s, President George H.W. Bush sent tens of thousands of Haitians who came to the US after the 1991 military coup to the Cuba base, and in 1994, the base housed 30,000 Cubans who tried to reach the US by raft and other makeshift vessels.

Deportation flights to the island commenced this week.