Congressional Delegation to Inspect Trump’s Migrant Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House Armed Services Committee is slated to inspect President Donald Trump’s migrant detention center at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as early as Friday. This visit marks the first congressional delegation to examine the facility since President Trump directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain migrants there in early February.
The inspection comes amid growing concerns and legal challenges surrounding the administration’s immigration policies and the conditions in which migrants are being held. Republicans within the delegation aim to highlight the purported successes of Trump’s immigration crackdown and demonstrate that the remote site in the Caribbean adheres to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention standards. These standards mandate non-punitive detention with safe and humane treatment of detainees.
Conversely, Democrats plan to scrutinize the conditions and overall suitability of Guantanamo Bay as a migrant detention facility. Members of Congress are entitled to conduct surprise inspections of ICE detention centers, a right that Democrats have been coordinating behind the scenes with their Republican counterparts concerning Guantanamo Bay. This collaborative approach contrasts with the Democrats’ recent solo efforts to access other federal buildings in Washington to address concerns regarding Trump administration policies, attempts which were met with resistance from security personnel.
The location of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay poses significant logistical challenges. With no commercial flights available to the base, the planned military flight represents a crucial opportunity for lawmakers to access this isolated facility. The U.S. military base in Cuba has gained notoriety as a holding site for terror suspects and is associated with allegations of torture and mistreatment that surfaced during the U.S. war on terrorism, which was launched by former President George W. Bush’s administration following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The Trump administration had temporarily suspended migrant transfers to the base following media reports detailing substandard conditions and legal action from organizations such as the ACLU, which alleged that detainees were denied access to legal counsel, their families, and due process. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on these allegations.
According to a U.S. official who requested anonymity, the facility currently holds fewer than 24 migrants.
Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado, who conducts weekly inspections of the ICE detention center in his district, expressed concerns about transporting migrants to Guantanamo Bay. Although invited to participate in the inspection, he declined due to a scheduling conflict. Crow stated, "It’s a tough facility to access, so sending migrants to a facility (where it’s) not easy to conduct oversight concerns me," adding that it is "one of the most expensive places in the world for taxpayers to support the detention of anybody." He questioned the administration’s stated goals of cost reduction and efficiency, arguing that these would not be achieved at Guantanamo Bay.
Rep. Derek Tran, a Democrat from California who plans to attend the trip, expressed his intentions, stating, "The fact that they were using that base to move immigrants through – I just want to check out for myself, with my own eyes, what the conditions are over there. I think they stopped that process, but just in case that starts up again, that’s the intent and purpose of the trip for me."
Despite multiple requests for comment, a spokeswoman for Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the committee, declined to comment. USA TODAY also contacted four other Republicans on the committee overseeing the Pentagon, but they did not immediately respond.
During his first month in office, President Trump deported 37,660 people to their countries of origin or other parts of the world, according to statistics provided to Reuters in February. This number is below the monthly average of 57,000 removals and returns during the last full year of the Biden administration. The decline was attributed in part to a decrease in border crossings, with recent migrants being among the easiest for the government to remove.
Trump stated on his social media platform that migrant encounters at the border dropped to 8,300 during his "first full month in office," running from January 20 to February 20. This figure is significantly lower than the approximately 190,000 migrant encounters recorded in February 2024. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has yet to release official numbers for February 2025.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has claimed that ICE is transferring “the worst of the worst” to Guantanamo, however, attorneys have stated that some detainees have no criminal record beyond an immigration violation.
ICE removed 177 Venezuelan nationals from Guantanamo on February 20, substantially emptying the facility before transferring another 10 migrants there last week, according to media reports.
President Trump has directed the construction of a detention center at Guantanamo capable of holding up to 30,000 migrants. The administration has also announced plans to establish temporary detention facilities on military bases within the United States, with the first site expected to open at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, later this month.
On Saturday, the ACLU and other organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking to halt the transfer of 10 immigrants in ICE detention to Guantanamo, calling the detentions arbitrary and unprecedented.
The congressional delegation’s inspection of the Guantanamo Bay detention center marks a significant development in the ongoing debate surrounding the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The findings of the inspection are likely to fuel further discussion and scrutiny of the administration’s approach to migrant detention and border security.
