More than 30 U.S. lawmakers have sent a letter to top officials in President Donald Trump's administration, demanding an end to using the Guantánamo Bay naval base for migrant detention and ruling out any military action against Cuba. The letter, led by Representative Delia Ramirez, an Illinois Democrat, was released on May 13 and obtained by The Guardian.
In the letter addressed to the Secretaries of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, the lawmakers warned that any military action targeting Cuba could be deeply destabilizing, fueling a wave of migration from the island to the United States. They wrote: "Such action would be unlawful, deeply destabilizing, and disastrous for the Cuban people, increasing displacement, worsening the humanitarian crisis, and undermining U.S. interests in the region." The lawmakers stressed the plan "must be unequivocally rejected."
The letter comes as President Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in controlling Cuba. In March, he said "Cuba is next" following a Delta Force operation in January to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration also imposed additional sanctions on Cuba last week, while a fuel embargo imposed by Trump earlier this year is blamed for triggering a severe humanitarian crisis on the island.
The lawmakers demanded the Trump administration stop using Guantánamo Bay for migrant detention, lift sanctions that contribute to the humanitarian crisis in Cuba, and abandon any planned military operations. They wrote: "U.S. policies have deliberately targeted Cuban civilians, contributing to their displacement and even death. Planning to detain them at Guantánamo is not a response to migration—it is an effort to contain the consequences of the very policies causing it."
The move comes a month after a group of human rights organizations condemned the Trump administration for its aggression toward Cuba and its desire to establish a 'camp' for Cuban migrants at Guantánamo Bay. In March, a senior Pentagon official told Congress that, in the event of a 'humanitarian crisis' in Cuba, the Defense Department would 'set up a camp' at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay to 'process' migrants. The official said they would assist the Department of Homeland Security in detaining migrants.
The lawmakers called the proposal "deeply alarming and unacceptable." They wrote: "This raises serious concerns about using a U.S. military facility with a well-documented record of abuse, while externalizing the consequences of U.S. policy toward Cuba by detaining those displaced instead of addressing the conditions driving migration."
Guantánamo Bay is best known for its notorious and secretive military prison for detainees in the so-called 'war on terror' following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Trump administration began expanding the use of Guantánamo for migrant detention last year, after the president signed an executive order expanding detention operations there.
Establishing a detention camp for migrants or asylum seekers is not new. In the 1990s, Guantánamo was used to hold tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers from the Caribbean, mainly from Haiti and later Cuba. That camp was closed after public outrage over squalid conditions. "Against this backdrop, the proposal to use Guantánamo to detain Cuban migrants is particularly egregious," the lawmakers wrote. "It would perpetuate a well-documented pattern of mistreatment against a population whose displacement is largely driven by U.S. policy."
The U.S. Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
