Military Considers Reducing Troops at Guantanamo Amid Legal Challenges
Amid ongoing legal debates and no current detainees, the U.S. military is considering a significant reduction in the number of troops stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Southern Command has been tasked with creating a plan to potentially cut the current deployment of 900 troops by half, as the facility currently houses no detainees.
Military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, revealed that the plan will assess the necessary troop levels and space requirements should the base receive more detainees. This comes at a time when no migrants have been transferred to Guantanamo since early March, although the administration has indicated that “high-threat” detainees could be transported there in the future.
Since February, U.S. authorities have moved over 290 detainees to the base, but by March 11, the remaining 40 individuals were relocated to Louisiana. The base has historically been used to detain migrants intercepted at sea, a practice that was expanded under President Donald Trump’s administration to include those detained as part of a broader border security strategy.
While Trump has declared that criminal migrants would be sent to Guantanamo, civil rights groups argue that many of those transferred have no criminal records, challenging the administration’s authority under U.S. immigration law. A recent judicial ruling against these advocates focused on the absence of detainees at the facility at the time.
Currently, the base is manned by approximately 500 Army soldiers, nearly 300 Marines, and several dozen sailors and airmen, who have little to occupy their time. The proposed Southern Command plan may result in many troops returning home, although some may remain on standby for potential future deployments.
In recent legal actions, civil rights attorneys have challenged the Trump administration’s efforts to transfer additional migrants to Guantanamo, highlighting conditions described by former detainees as extremely harsh. A judge has left the door open for revisiting these issues should detainee transfers resume.
Initial transfers of migrants to Guantanamo began with military flights from Fort Bliss on February 4, initially involving Venezuelan nationals. This was followed by the transfer of 177 detainees from Guantanamo to Venezuela, with a stopover in Honduras.
