195 deserted tents. Almost 2,400 vacant beds for weeks. In the American enclave in Guantanamo, migrant retention is only a distant memory. Tuesday, March 14, an American official in the Ministry of Defense announced that the last 40 foreigners had been sent by plane to Louisiana. A state in which the Federal Immigration Police (ICE) has an agency. Two weeks earlier, 48 migrants had already been transferred from Guantanamo bay to the state located in the south-east of the country, in addition to the expulsion of Cuba at the end of February 177 Venezuelans, returned to their country.
Infrastructure incompatible with government standards
Two months ago, however, the American president was full of ambition and joined a slippery land: that of developing a giant detention center for 30,000 migrants in Guantanamo. A place where the “worst foreign criminals” were to be sent. During his electoral campaign, the Republican had quickly set the tone, accusing the migrants of being “criminals” who “poison the blood” of the United States, and had promised to carry out “the greatest operation of expulsions in the history of the country”.
Known to have suspects arrested after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the American naval base in Guantanamo has a military detention center, audience rooms and a separate installation used for several decades to hold migrants. There is no need to specify why Donald Trump’s ambitions to enlarge a high security military prison to hold foreigners have come up against lively reactions from the rights of migrants’ rights.
Especially since, originally, the authorities had declared that they would only send Guantanamo only to irregular foreigners in the United States known to have criminal history. But two months later, the legislators were forced to note that a large part of the people detained in the American bay of Cuba were considered “at low risk”, meaning that a judge had well ordered their expulsion from the country, but that they had in no way committed crimes.
The quality of infrastructure has also been the target of criticism. From the start, the tents in which migrants stayed were considered incompatible with the government standards required by the ICE. According to legislators who went to the scene and interviewed speak Wall Street Journalthe tents were open to the outside and felt mold due to the absence of air conditioning. These same sources were also able to observe that the shelters had no ground covering and rested only on grass and earth.
$ 20,000 for the transfer of a single migrant
Currently, hundreds of soldiers from the United States Southern Command (responsible for military actions in the United States in Central America, South America and the Caribbean) are still deployed on the basis to monitor the facilities, but should return to the United States in the coming weeks, according to an official interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. And for good reason, after a bitter failure from a humanitarian point of view, the Trump administration collects a disastrous financial assessment.
As part of a conference delegation visit on the American basis, Democratic Representative Sara Jacobs learned that Donald Trump’s anti-immigration operation has so far cost $ 16 million. A budget that does not seem to include the expensive flights that have transported migrants, military troops and supplies. The Trump administration had first chosen to make the first transfers via the C-17 and C-130 aircraft of the Air Force. An analysis of Wall Street Journal revealed that moving a single foreigner to Guantanamo bay aboard these vehicles cost more than $ 20,000. In mid-February, military flights were therefore suspended, and civil aircraft were then used.
Transport was not the only cost for taxpayers. The Democratic representative said that on the money spent by the United States Department of Defense, $ 3.1 million was spent solely for the establishment of tents, which, ultimately, have never been operational.
But the expulsion of all migrants in Guantanamo bay does not necessarily mean that Donald Trump’s project is definitively abandoned. Two federal officials told the Associated Press that the administration plans to use the facilities to host migrants who are being heading to the United States. All that remains is to know how many millions of additional dollars will still have to be spent for these infrastructures comply with ICE standards.