Guantanamo Immigration Detention Sits Mostly Empty After Year, Costs Military $73 Million

Eight days after returning to the White House last year, President Trump announced plans to convert the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a massive detention center for 30,000 deportees as part of his immigration crackdown.

A CBS News review of internal government documents and congressional information shows the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities remain mostly empty over a year later. The operation is projected to cost the U.S. military more than $70 million.

Federal documents obtained by CBS News indicate the U.S. government held six immigration detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on May 11, all Haitian nationals. Over the past year, 832 detainees arrived on more than 100 flights.

The documents reveal more government employees than detainees at the operation. This week, staff outnumbered detainees about 100 to 1.

Congressional figures show the Department of Defense assigned 522 personnel to immigration detention at Guantanamo. Internal documents list around 60 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and non-military staff for the mission.

Information from the Department of Defense to Sen. Elizabeth Warren in April puts the military cost at $73 million, up from the prior $40 million estimate.

Trump stated in January 2025 that officials would create 30,000 beds at Guantanamo. Documents show capacity limited to about 400 beds, with fewer than 2% occupied on May 11.

The documents and congressional data detail the controversial, secretive effort to hold civil immigration detainees at Guantanamo, site of infamous post-9/11 terrorism detentions amid abuse allegations.

Warren, who received the cost projection, said in a statement to CBS News that President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were "wasting billions in taxpayer funds on a cruel immigration agenda."

CBS News sought comment from the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security on plans to continue the operation.

Publicly, the Trump administration has shared few details on holding deportation candidates at the base, located on leased Cuban land that Cuba calls illegal.

Before the second Trump term, U.S. governments under both parties used Guantanamo for intercepted sea migrants, including tens of thousands of Haitians under Clinton.

In February 2025, ICE began sending U.S.-arrested detainees to Guantanamo pending deportation. Trump and aides promised to send the "worst" and "high-priority criminal aliens," but reporting showed otherwise.

CBS News found the base held migrants with gang or criminal histories alongside "low-risk" detainees lacking serious records. An April 2025 CBS News report on an internal memo showed officials had broad discretion to send non-criminals there.

Low-risk detainees stay at the Migration Operations Center, a barracks once used for sea-intercepted asylum-seekers. High-risk ones go to Camp VI, part of the post-9/11 prison still holding terrorism suspects.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled in December that the effort was "impermissibly punitive" and likely unlawful but did not halt it.

ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt, who sued, called the Guantanamo use "political theater."

"Not only is the Trump administration's use of Guantanamo unprecedented and illegal, but it serves no legitimate policy goal given the financial and logistical burdens of using this notorious military base for immigration purposes," Gelernt said.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former DHS official under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the administration created Guantanamo and sites like "Alligator Alcatraz" in Florida to encourage self-deportation and deter illegal entries.

Cardinal Brown said Guantanamo's deterrence is hard to gauge beyond low U.S.-Mexico border crossings, but the costs are evident.

"Everything has to be shipped in there, right? It's not like we're importing things from Cuba," she said. "Everything has to come from a U.S. source to that military installation. It's going to be much, much more expensive."