Defense Dept. has spent $12 million to keep illegal immigrants at Guantanamo

The Defense Department spent $12 million last year to house illegal immigrants at the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — including nearly $3 million to erect a tent city that never got used.

Some 708 migrants had been shipped to the detainee facility as of the end of December, an inspector general revealed. The average length of stay was just 14 days.

The facility was supposed to be able to handle as many as 30,000 migrant detainees. The inspector general said the actual current capacity and the current population can’t be made public, but did say of the 708 who were sent to the base last year, 691 had been shipped back to the U.S. or repatriated to another country.

Defense officials said they are acting in support of the Department of Homeland Security, which has the primary duty in caring for the migrants. The Defense Department is handling logistics, transportation and base security.

The inspector general suggested neither department had metrics to measure the success of the mission.

“Neither the DoD nor the DHS provided any specific national security justification, cost, or other benefit explaining why illegal aliens are being sent to [Guantanamo] rather than other DHS or DoD facilities in the continental United States,” the audit concluded.

The migrant facility was emptied out in October, ahead of Hurricane Melissa, and remained empty for 50 days until mid-December, due in part to the ongoing partial government shutdown, the audit said.

Guantanamo Bay has been used for migrant detention in the past. But President Trump’s Jan. 29, 2025, decision to ramp up the facility to “full capacity” drew fierce criticism and set off legal battles.

The government runs two distinct detention facilities. One houses low-threat migrants while the other, which occupies space used to house terrorism suspect prisoners from the war on terror, holds “high-threat” migrants.

Under the memorandum of understanding between DHS and the Defense Department, the facility was aimed at holding migrants with a “nexus” to international gang or drug activity.

That allows the Defense Department help under the law.

But the definition is broad enough to include someone who paid a smuggling cartel to help get them across the border.

The Pentagon’s Southern Command said it spent $8.6 million to house migrants between January and September of last year, and another $3.47 million from October through December.

That initial spending was provided on a nonreimbursable basis, but the fiscal year 2026 costs are being provided on a reimbursable basis, the audit said.

When Mr. Trump gave the order last year to expand operations, the Defense Department constructed tent camps that could hold 5,000 people.

DHS then determined the tents didn’t meet their standards, and they were taken down and stored.

That cost $2.85 million, the audit said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, meanwhile, had 28 agency employees and 78 security contractors assigned to the mission as of last Sept. 30. Numbers were curtailed ahead of Hurricane Melissa in October and remained low through December, based on a slower “operational tempo.”