The US Naval Base in the Cuban province of Guantánamo is preparing to add a new chapter to its long and dark history. On Wednesday (29), President Donald Trump signed an executive order to set up a detention center for deported migrants on the territory.
The measure was announced during the enactment of the Laken Riley Act, a controversial regulation that toughens penalties for migrants accused of minor crimes, such as theft or violence, and which Congress approved through a bipartisan agreement.
During the event, Trump declared he would sign an executive order to “instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing for 30,000 person [sic] migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay”. He said that sending deported migrants would apply only to “criminals", whom he described as “so bad that we don't even trust the countries to hold them because we don't want them coming back."
The measure was presented as a way to “double the detention capacity” of the United States after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed it could currently hold around 40,000 deportees.
Despite Trump's insistence on pointing out a supposed link between migration and crime in the country, academic research indicates that it is not migrants who mostly commit crimes. According to a recent study led by Ran Abramitzky, professor of economics at Stanford University, migrants have one of the lowest incarceration rates in the US, even 30% lower compared to the white population.
Show of brutality
The Cuban government immediately repudiated the announcement. In an official statement, the island described the decision as a “show of brutality” by the Trump administration. It also states that the territory where the US Naval Base is located is a portion of Cuba that “remains militarily occupied illegally and against the will of the Cuban nation.”
The withdrawal of the United States from Guantanamo, which it militarily occupies, has been a historic demand of the Cuban government since the triumph of the 1959 Revolution.
The statement also points out that “this military installation is internationally identified, among other reasons, for housing a torture center and indefinite detention center, outside the jurisdiction of US courts, where people have been detained for up to 20 years without being tried or convicted of any crime."
In addition to the infamous prison, the US Naval Base in Guantanamo has, for years, housed a center for migrants intercepted at sea, mainly from Cuba and Haiti. Therefore, the Trump administration's plan would include expanding the existing base, separated from the prison.
According to a report published last year by the non-profit organization International Refugee Assistance Project, the migrants taken to Guantánamo faced unsanitary and “prison-like” conditions, while they were “trapped in a punitive system” for which officials took no responsibility.
Violation of international law
Located in the southeastern area of Cuba, the Guantanamo Naval Base is not only one of the oldest military bases the United States has on foreign land but also represents one of the most paradigmatic and flagrant examples of imperialist arrogance against Latin America and the Caribbean.
After decades of struggle in the Wars of Independence (1868-1898), Cubans were on the verge of gaining autonomy from the Kingdom of Spain. When the Cuban independence fighters had practically defeated the Spanish army, the United States intervened, in 1898, with the excuse of the USS Maine sinking in Havana.
This event served as a pretext for the US to intervene in the war, which culminated in the military occupation of Cuba and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1898), by which Spain ceded control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to the US country.
In 1901, under pressure from the US, Cuba was forced to include the so-called “Platt Amendment” in its constitution. This appendix, drafted by US senator Orville Platt, gave the country the right to intervene militarily in Cuba when it deemed it necessary and obliged the island to lease land for naval bases.
It was in this context, in 1903, that presidents Tomás Estrada Palma (Cuba) and Theodore Roosevelt (United States) signed an agreement ceding forever the territory of Guantanamo to be used as a naval station.
Since then, the Guantanamo Naval Base has been a symbol of US interference in the region. After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro's government repeatedly denounced the US military presence as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.
Cuba argues that the 1903 agreement has no legal validity since it was signed under coercion and contradicts Article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which establishes the nullity of treaties imposed by means of force or threat.
An infamous torture center
Although the base has been used for various purposes throughout its history, its darkest chapter began in 2002, when the George W. Bush administration converted it into a detention center for terrorist suspects jailed as part of the “War on Terror”.
This move was strategic: by establishing the prison outside the United States, the government sought to evade the jurisdiction of federal courts and avoid the scrutiny of the press and human rights bodies.
Around 800 people from more than 30 countries, including minors, have been detained in Guantánamo without formal charges, access to lawyers or guarantees of a fair trial. Many of these people were captured in secret military operations or handed over to the US by allied governments in exchange for rewards, in what became known as the “extraordinary rendition” program.
Several international organizations have criticized Guantanamo Bay prison's poor conditions. Interrogation techniques such as drowning, sleep deprivation, prolonged solitary confinement and exposure to extreme temperatures have been documented by groups such as Amnesty International and the Center for Victims of Torture.
In 2006, a report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called these practices “tantamount to torture” and demanded the immediate closure of the center.
Despite promises from several US presidents, including Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Guantanamo prison continues to operate. As of 2023, more than 30 detainees will remain at the base, many of them without trial. A document by UN special rapporteurs, released on the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison, concluded that Guantánamo represents “a legacy of systematic human rights violations.”
Edited by: Dayze Rocha
