Trump wants Guantánamo to hold 30,000 migrants. So far it has held about 300.
When President Donald Trump directed the U.S. government to begin using the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station as a detention center for migrants in late January, he said it would “double our capacity immediately” to hold people being removed from the country as part of a massive deportation campaign.
But nearly two months later, the operation has struggled to scale up. On Wednesday, a Defense Department official confirmed there were no migrants being held in Guantánamo. Forty men who were still there earlier in the week have since been flown back to the United States.
A series of logistical, legal and financial hurdles have cast doubt on whether the president’s goal of housing 30,000 people there can be carried out. In all, about 300 migrants total have been detained there.
