WASHINGTON: The first US military aircraft carrying detained migrants to Guantanamo Bay is expected to depart on Tuesday, US officials said, as President Donald Trump’s administration prepares to potentially house tens of thousands of migrants at the naval base in Cuba.

Trump said he wants the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to expand a migrant detention facility at the base to hold more than 30,000 migrants.

“Today, the first flight from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on FOX Business. One official said the flight would be carrying nearly a dozen migrants.

The flight to Guantanamo Bay adds to military flights that have already deported migrants to Guatemala, Peru, Honduras and India. The Pentagon has said it plans to deport more than 5,000 migrants held by US authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.

Legality of sending inmates to El Salvador

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday acknowledged potential legal issues around El Salvador’s offer to take in American prisoners, but said the proposal was worth considering.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has built Latin America’s largest prison, offered on Monday to let President Donald Trump outsource the US prison system by sending inmates to his country. “Obviously, we’ll have to study it on our end. There are obviously legalities involved,” Rubio told reporters a day afterward in Costa Rica.

“We have a constitution, we have all sorts of things, but it’s a very generous offer,” Rubio said.

“No one’s ever made an offer like that, to outsource at a fraction of the cost at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States,” Rubio said. “But obviously the administration will have to make a decision.”

There are few precedents in modern times for a democratic country to send its own citizens to foreign prisons.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2025