Trump Leaves Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp Nearly Empty
On May 11, 2026, the U.S. government was holding just six immigration detainees at guantanamo bay detention camp, all six nationals of Haiti. That is a tiny fraction of the 30,000 detention beds President Donald Trump said officials would set up in January 2025, over a year after he announced the base would be turned into a major immigration site.
Trump’s 30,000-bed plan
Trump announced the plan eight days after returning to the White House last year, casting Guantanamo Bay as a detention hub for migrants. Internal federal documents put the base’s immigration-detention capacity at roughly 400 beds, and fewer than 2% of those beds were occupied on May 11, 2026. The gap between the public promise and the actual head count is now stark: six detainees in a facility built for hundreds, not the tens of thousands Trump described.
Over the past year, 832 immigration detainees were transferred to the base on more than 100 flights. This week, government employees outnumbered detainees at Guantanamo roughly 100 to 1, with the Department of Defense assigning 522 personnel to assist with immigration detention and around 60 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and non-military staff to the mission.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base costs
The military side of the operation is expected to cost $73 million, up from a previously public estimate of $40 million. In April 2026, the Department of Defense provided Senator Elizabeth Warren information showing that figure, and Warren said the administration was “wasting billions in taxpayer funds on a cruel immigration agenda.”
The numbers leave a practical reality for the base’s role: Guantanamo is being used for civil immigration detention, even though the U.S. government had used it before to house some migrants intercepted at sea. For readers tracking whether the site is functioning as Trump described, the current count says otherwise.
Lauren Bis and Cuba
Lauren Bis said in a statement Wednesday, “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, you could end up in Guantanamo Bay, CECOT, or a third country. Our message is clear: criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.” The Cuban government alleges the Guantanamo lease arrangement is illegal, keeping the base politically disputed even as the detention program remains small.
The next hard marker is whether the administration expands the operation beyond the six Haitians now there, or keeps using a base with roughly 400 beds for a mission that once carried a 30,000-bed promise. For detainees, staff, and the lawmakers scrutinizing the costs, the question is no longer what was announced — it is whether the government can justify the scale it has actually built.
