Guantánamo Expansion Plan Targets Capacity for 30,000 Migrants

On January 29, 2025, Trump directed the government to prepare the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center to hold as many as 30,000 migrants, a substantial expansion of the facility's use for immigration detention.

The plan raised questions about detainees' legal access to counsel and courts given the facility's offshore location, conditions of confinement, the cost of transporting and housing tens of thousands of people at a remote military installation, and the broader precedent of using a facility historically associated with military detention of terrorism suspects for civilian immigration enforcement purposes.

Available sourcing does not indicate whether the facility reached the stated capacity target or the current status of the expansion plan.