The history of Guantanamo Bay detention camp

The Trump administration's mass deportation efforts have run into a hitch. The president's plans involved housing thousands of migrants at Guantanamo Bay. But "logistical and legal" challenges have gotten in the way.

The American naval base in Cuba "has gone largely empty" since the administration announced plans to use it as a deportation way station, said The Washington Examiner. Guantanamo — commonly called "Gitmo" — was intended as a holding location for deported migrants "from countries that will not accept their citizens from the U.S." The administration "racked up significant costs" flying prisoners to the site, and groups like the ACLU filed lawsuits challenging the detention of migrants there. How did Gitmo end up at the center of America's immigration debate?

How did the US acquire Guantanamo Bay?

Gitmo has been used by American forces since the Spanish-American War in 1898, said USA Today. The first lease between the United States and Cuba was signed in 1903, then renewed in 1934 with a new provision: Termination of the lease "requires the consent of both the U.S. and Cuban governments or the U.S. abandonment of the base property," the Navy said in its history of the base. That provision allowed the United States to hang on to this foothold in Cuba after the country's communist revolution during the 1950s.

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How did the base become a detention camp?

The base was converted to a "holding camp" for "thousands of Haitian refugees seeking asylum" under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, said Frontline. Those refugees were processed for asylum, "but without access to lawyers, like they would have had if they'd made it to U.S. soil." That "set the stage" for the George W. Bush administration to later use Gitmo as a prison for terror suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. U.S. officials argued that prisoners there "could be held outside the reach of U.S. law," said Frontline.

Is it ready to handle deportations?

Guantanamo Bay "currently has the capacity to hold 180 migrants," said The Washington Post. It could hold up to 3,120 more "if tents put up by troops were equipped with utilities like air conditioning." President Donald Trump in January ordered the base to "double our capacity" in order to enable a "massive deportation campaign." The president's longer-term goal was to hold up to 30,000 people at the camp. Gitmo is an expensive prison, though: Terror suspects cost an estimated $16,540 a day per prisoner to house, and experts believe the cost for migrants is "about the same as the prisoners' cost," said the Post.

What next?

The plan is "unraveling," said The Wall Street Journal. The few migrants sent to Gitmo "are now gone," and the Pentagon is planning to "draw down from the roughly 1,000 military personnel" deployed there for the deportation operation. Some Republicans are arguing for persistence. "Next time I go down there," Rep. Mike Collins (R., Ga.) said after a recent visit, "I want to make sure that I see that place full of criminals."