They were placed in the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi
14ymedio, Havana, February 10, 2026 – After weeks stranded at the Guantánamo naval base, the group of around 50 Cubans detained by the United States was finally returned to U.S. territory. All of them were placed in the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi, except for one who was sent to Houston, Texas, to receive medical care. The most recent episode of this story was revealed over the weekend by The New York Times (NYT), which has followed the case since last December.
Relatives of these migrants quoted by the New York daily say the men were returned to the United States on a charter flight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), operated by the airline Global X, on a 175-seat aircraft.
Many of these Cubans, aged between 20 and 50, accepted deportation at the end of last year believing they would return to Cuba before Christmas to reunite with their families. According to the report, several of them had been detained in the United States for months, some with work permits and asylum applications still pending. Faced with uncertainty in their cases, several agreed to return to Cuba, never imagining that the flight would end at the naval base.
On December 14, after ICE facilities at Guantánamo had remained empty for weeks, a first group of 22 people arrived, five of whom were considered “high-risk illegal aliens.” U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said the deported Cubans had “criminal records” for homicide, kidnapping, assault, injury, obstruction of law enforcement, and cruelty to a minor, although they provided no details. Over the following weeks, other flights brought more Cubans, raising the total to around 50 people.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said the deported Cubans had “criminal records”
At the time, their relatives reported that several had been transferred “under false pretenses,” held incommunicado for days, handcuffed, and treated like criminals, even though many had no criminal record.
In Guantánamo, the Cubans were confined in military facilities, first in former barracks and later in Camp 6, a prison that for years housed jihadists.
The original plan for these migrants, detained in the United States last year, was for them to be transported from Guantánamo to a U.S. airport, probably in Puerto Rico, and then sent on to Havana, something that ultimately did not materialize.
The main obstacle is the severe restrictions on flights from the base to the rest of the country. For one of these men to reach Cuban soil, he would first have to fly to a U.S. city and from there board another plane to Cuba.
The Department of Homeland Security authorities have not publicly explained why these Cubans were selected
For now, Department of Homeland Security authorities have not publicly explained why these Cubans were selected to be sent to Guantánamo, nor why they were returned to Mississippi, in the midst of a process described by critics as a costly political spectacle.
“The fact that the Trump Administration sent dozens of Cubans to Guantánamo for weeks, only to then bring them back to the United States, reveals the absurdity of the government’s Guantánamo policy,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, quoted by The New York Times. “Quite simply: it is political theater designed to scare immigrants.”
From the Cuban side, there were no official statements from the government, nor were there visible efforts to speed up their return.
The NYT suggests that the Cubans may be trapped in a political standoff between the two governments, at a time when the Trump Administration has also intensified its pressure on Havana, including the U.S. oil squeeze.
The migration operation that took the Cubans to Guantánamo stemmed from an order signed by President Trump
The migration operation that took the Cubans to Guantánamo stemmed from an order signed by President Trump in January 2025, instructing that the base be prepared to receive up to 30,000 deportees. A year later, the actual number is far from that goal. According to The New York Times itself, only 780 people have passed through the base under this scheme, without the U.S. government demonstrating that most had criminal records.
In this regard, CBS reported on Monday that six out of seven migrants detained by ICE in the first year of the current Donald Trump Administration have no history of violent crime, based on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document.
In addition, nearly four out of ten detainees held by ICE had no criminal record at all, and some were only accused of civil immigration offenses, such as living illegally in the United States or overstaying their permitted time in the country.
It was also reported on Monday that at least two migrants have been infected with tuberculosis and another 18 with COVID-19 at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, which is considered the largest migrant detention center in the United States, according to The Texas Tribune.
Reports of these infections come a week after the United States closed another detention center—the only one that holds migrant families, also in Texas—due to a measles outbreak.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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