The saga of dozens of Cuban men who thought they were being deported from the United States last year and then spent weeks in a prison at the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, took a new turn this week as they were transferred to detention in Mississippi.
All but one of the men were being held on Friday at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Miss., according to family members who declined to be identified to protect the men from being singled out for reprisal by the United States or the Cuban government. The man who was separated from the group was sent to Houston for medical care.
Department of Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions about the men and their unusual journey, the reason for their transfer and why they were chosen — from among the tens of thousands of people in the United States awaiting deportation — to be held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo.
Some of them voluntarily agreed to abandon their cases in immigration court in exchange for what they thought would result in their return to Cuba before Christmas, according to family members. At least six of the men had work permits and had applied for asylum.
Instead, starting with the first 22 in December, they wound up on Cuban soil, being held in a prison building at the base that previously housed people suspected of being Al Qaeda members. More flights brought more Cuban citizens designated for deportation, bringing the number of Cubans held at the base to 55 in early January.
Then on Monday, they were all transferred back to the United States on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter, a 175-seat passenger plane operated by Global X, according to flight trackers.
Left behind were 34 Haitians designated for repatriation, some of whom were transferred back to Haiti on Thursday, according to people familiar with the detained immigrant population held at the base who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.
The United States has held about 780 migrants at Guantánamo during President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Some were sent on to other countries by U.S.-chartered or military aircraft. But others, like the Cubans, had to be brought back to the United States first before deportation, prompting critics to describe the operation as expensive and inefficient.
The Cuban migrants appear to be caught up in a political standoff between the two governments at a time when the Trump administration has denied Cuba shipments of Venezuelan oil as part of a pressure campaign to bring down the Cuban government.
Immigration experts have tracked near monthly repatriation flights of Cuban deportees from the United States since April 2023. But the United States did not reach an agreement with Cuba to send a flight of deportees to Havana in January, and the Cubans who had spent up to 40 days at Guantánamo were moved to Mississippi.
It is not clear what the Trump administration’s next move will be if Cuba continues to refuse taking back deportees. The United States has an agreement with Mexico to send some Cuban deportees there. U.S. officials have also been negotiating with Argentina to take in deportees from other countries.
Carol Rosenberg reports on the wartime prison and court at Guantánamo Bay. She has been covering the topic since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. base in 2002.
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