Cuba rejects U.S. decision to incarcerate migrants at Guantanamo Naval Base

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs  

Cuba rejects the decision announced by the President of the United States to use the Guantanamo Naval Base to imprison tens of thousands of migrants he has proposed to forcibly expel. It is a demonstration of the brutality with which that government is acting to supposedly correct problems created by the economic and social conditions of that country, the government's own management and its foreign policy, including hostility towards countries of origin.

Many of the people that the United States is expelling or intends to expel are victims of the government's own plundering policies and meet the labor needs that have historically existed in agriculture, construction, industry, services and various sectors of the U.S. economy. Others are the result of facilities at the border to enter the country, of selective, politically motivated regulations that welcome them as refugees, and also of the socioeconomic damage caused by unilateral coercive measures.
A significant portion contribute and have contributed to the economy of that country. They are employed, have homes, have created families and have planned their respective lives in the United States.

The territory where it is proposed to confine them does not belong to the United States. It is a portion of Cuban territory in the eastern province of Guantanamo, which remains militarily occupied illegally and against the will of the Cuban nation.  This military installation is internationally identified, among other reasons, for housing a torture and indefinite detention center, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, where people have been held for up to 20 years who have never been judicially processed or convicted of any crime.

Its irresponsible use would generate a scenario of risk and insecurity in that illegal enclave and its surroundings; it would threaten peace and would lend itself to errors, accidents and misinterpretations that could alter stability and provoke serious consequences.

Havana, January 29, 2025