Senators slam $40 million Guantánamo migrant detention as wasteful and legally questionable

A Senate delegation is calling on the Trump administration to end its Guantánamo Bay migrant detention program, labeling it an “unsustainably expensive” misuse of military resources after the Pentagon revealed the operation has cost $40 million in just six weeks, reports the New York Times.

The operation, established in February, has cycled fewer than 400 migrants through the US naval base in Cuba, with at least half reportedly Venezuelan. Despite its scale, fewer than ninety detainees remain at the facility, while most others have either been deported or returned to ICE custody on the mainland.

After visiting the base on 29 March 2925, Senators Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Angus King (I-Maine) issued a joint statement urging an immediate end to the mission. They criticized the use of military personnel for noncombat functions, noting that troops had been “rushed to Guantánamo Bay without notice,” compromising readiness and diverting from core missions.

The military detention facility—originally used for wartime detainees—is now repurposed under a secret memo between DHS and the Pentagon to detain migrants alleged to have ties to transnational crime. However, as The New York Times reported, many of those held had only immigration-related offenses, with little public evidence of violent criminal histories.

Sen. Reed, the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, called the initiative “extraordinarily expensive and unnecessary,” suggesting instead that “ICE facilities in the United States” be enhanced.