Troops arrive at Guantanamo Bay to prepare migrant detention center
By Riley Ceder
Feb 3, 2025, 06:37 PM
Marines with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, arrive at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, over the weekend. (Jovi Prevot/U.S. Navy)
Service members arrived over the weekend at Guantanamo Bay, where they’ll work to prepare the Navy base in southeast Cuba for an influx of deported migrants.
Marines with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division boarded a KC-130J at Cherry Point Air Station in North Carolina on Sunday and departed for Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. There, they joined personnel from U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Army South, bringing the total number of service members deployed to the base for the migrant holding operation to 150.
The Marines and soldiers will provide support for a White House plan to deport immigrants lacking permanent legal status from the United States and detain them at the base. This comes as part of a sweeping effort by President Donald Trump, announced Jan. 29, to use Guantanamo as a holding ground for “high-priority criminal aliens.”
Trump said he was directing an expansion of a detention center on the naval base to hold up to 30,000 migrants.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2025/02/03/troops-arrive-at-guantanamo-bay-to-prepare-migrant-detention-center/