The Trump administration planned to transfer potentially thousands of undocumented immigrants from various countries, including close U.S. allies like Britain, France, and Germany, to Guantanamo Bay. The plan involved medical screenings for approximately 9,000 individuals and aimed to alleviate overcrowding in domestic detention facilities. The administration did not intend to notify the detainees' home countries.
Concerns were raised about whether Guantanamo Bay had the capacity to accommodate such a large influx of detainees. While initial reports suggested plans to transfer up to 30,000 migrants, previous attempts in March 2025 resulted in a return of detainees due to capacity constraints. The White House denied the report, while the Department of Homeland Security and a defense official declined to comment or confirmed that previous temporary tent structures were already removed.
The plan reflected the Trump administration's hard-line stance on immigration, aligning with the calls for increased deportations and arrests from officials such as Stephen Miller and Tom Homan. The initiative is expected to receive criticism from U.S. allies concerned about the well-being of their citizens held at Guantanamo Bay.
The article highlights that many detainees' home countries had agreed to accept their citizens but had not acted swiftly enough, in the opinion of the DHS. A congressional aide mentioned that DHS requested an expansion of a medium-security detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
The Trump administration is preparing to begin the transfer of potentially thousands of foreigners who are in the United States illegally to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, starting as early as this week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The foreign nationals under consideration hail from a range of countries. They include hundreds from friendly European nations, including Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine, but also other parts of the world, including many from Haiti. Officials shared the plans with The Washington Post, including some documents, on the condition of anonymity because the matter is considered highly sensitive.
The administration is unlikely to inform the foreigners’ home governments about the impending transfers to the infamous military facility, including close U.S. allies such as Britain, Germany and France, the officials said.
The plans, which are subject to change, come as immigration hard-liners inside President Donald Trump’s Cabinet push for more deportations and arrests of undocumented migrants.
The preparations include medical screening for 9,000 individuals to determine whether they are healthy enough to be sent to Guantánamo, notorious for its history as a prison for suspected terrorists and others captured on battlefields in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some of these details were reported earlier by Politico.
It is far from clear whether the facilities there can accommodate 9,000 new detainees, an influx that would amount to a massive increase from the several hundred migrants moved to and from the base earlier this year.
But Trump administration officials say the plan is necessary to free up capacity at domestic detention facilities, which have become overcrowded amid Trump’s pledge to implement the biggest deportation of undocumented migrants in American history. A document reviewed by The Post said that “GTMO,” the government acronym for the base, “is not at capacity.”
In January, Trump announced he would send as many as 30,000 migrants to the facility. Scores of migrants held at the base in March were sent back to facilities in Louisiana in a move critics of the administration’s immigration crackdown suspected was due to capacity issues.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. The White House did not provide comment when asked about the plans on Monday and Tuesday. But on Wednesday, following publication of this report, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on social media that the story is “Fake News. Not happening.”
A defense official said that “ongoing missions at Naval Station Guantánamo remain unchanged, and we do not comment on any speculative future missions.”
DHS intends to “minimize” the time detainees spend at the Caribbean base, but the White House could decide to use the facility for longer-term detention, according to an official document.
The move to dramatically expand transfers is expected to draw criticism from U.S. allies concerned about the welfare of their citizens at the military base, which became a global symbol of torture and abuse in the wake of counterterrorism tactics pursued by Washington after 9/11.
U.S. officials said the individuals being vetted for transfer are in the United States illegally. Many of the detainees’ home countries have told the U.S. they are willing to accept their citizens but have not moved quickly enough in the eyes of DHS, officials said.
In recent weeks, immigration hard-liners close to Trump have been angling for a bigger crackdown on undocumented people in the United States.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News last month, pledging to increase the numbers.
White House border czar Tom Homan has expressed similar sentiments. “We’ve got to increase these arrests and removals,” Homan said.
DHS recently requested expansion of a medium-security detention facility at the base from 140 to 300 detainees, said a congressional aide familiar with the matter.
U.S. forces at the base erected a tent city earlier this year — 195 structures with a capacity to house more than 3,000 people — in anticipation of a large influx of detainees. But that never occurred, as flights dropped off modest numbers of people and the capacity of available facilities was not exceeded.
Base personnel took down the tents through the spring. None of the original tents were left standing, and they were never used, a defense official said Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss current operations.
Marianne LeVine and Natalie Allison contributed to this report.
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