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Five senators who visited the U.S. base at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, Cuba, criticized the migrant mission there over the weekend as a waste of resources, after the Pentagon estimated that the operation had cost $40 million in its first month.<\/p>\n
The Senate delegation on Friday toured Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities where about 85 migrants were being held, including in a prison that for years housed wartime detainees linked to Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The senators also spoke with officials from the Defense and Homeland Security Departments. About 1,000 government employees, mostly from the military, are staffing the migrant operation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The administration has sent fewer than 400 men, at least half of them Venezuelans, to the base since February as part of President Trump\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration. The authorities returned about half of them to facilities in the United States without explaining why scores of people needed to be housed at Guant\u00e1namo for short stays.<\/p>\n
As of Monday, there were fewer than 90 immigration detainees at the base after the U.S. military delivered<\/a> 17 Salvadorans and Venezuelans from Guant\u00e1namo to a prison in El Salvador.<\/p>\n Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who was part of the delegation, faulted the administration on Sunday for \u201cdiverting troops from their primary missions\u201d to Guant\u00e1namo.<\/p>\n Mr. Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview that he was provided with an estimate that the operation had cost $40 million in the first month.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of that is extraordinarily expensive and unnecessary,\u201d he said. Instead, the administration should \u201ctry to enhance ICE facilities in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The others on the trip were Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee; Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee; Alex Padilla, Democrat of California; and Angus King, independent of Maine.<\/p>\n The Defense Department advised Congress that as of March 12, the Guant\u00e1namo migrant operation had cost $39.3 million, according to congressional aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Pentagon and congressional communications are considered sensitive. That estimate covered a six-week period when the Trump administration had moved 290 migrants through there, including 177 Venezuelans who were repatriated<\/a>.<\/p>\n The daylong Senate trip on Friday was a low-profile event compared with ones by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> and Kristi Noem<\/a>, the homeland security secretary, who each brought news photographers with them. But just like during their visits, the senators were there when the administration flew in a small number of migrants: 13 Nicaraguans from an ICE facility in Louisiana. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, described them as \u201cgang members.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Saturday, hours after the delegation issued a statement<\/a> urging the administration to \u201cimmediately cease this misguided mission,\u201d an Air Force C-130 cargo plane from San Antonio brought 12 more migrants to the operation. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It was the first military shuttle carrying migrants to Guant\u00e1namo since ICE began using less costly charter planes to transport migrants to and from the base on Feb. 28. The government declined to explain the use of the more expensive military aircraft. \u201cImmigration and Customs Enforcement is unable to comment due to pending litigation,\u201d ICE said in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter examining the migrant relocation activities at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, we are outraged by the scale and wastefulness of the Trump administration\u2019s misuse of our military,\u201d the five senators said in the statement.<\/p>\n They called the migrant operation \u201cunsustainably expensive, operating under questionable legal authority, and harmful to our military readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n Guant\u00e1namo is a particularly expensive place because it is cut off from the rest of the island by a Cuban minefield. The base produces its own energy and water, and supplies are shipped in from Florida by barge and aircraft.<\/p>\n The delegation was critical of the mission but not of the estimated 900 military members and 100 homeland security employees who had been mobilized to the base to carry it out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some troops \u201cwere rushed to Guant\u00e1namo Bay without notice, leaving their critical day-to-day military missions behind in order to build tents that should never be filled and guard immigrants who should never be held there,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis would be better both economically and also in terms of legal clarity if the military were not involved,\u201d it continued.<\/p>\n ICE decides when it needs military aircraft and the Pentagon provides them, according to two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the arrangements.<\/p>\n The congressional aides said the operation was governed by a secret memorandum of understanding between the Defense and Homeland Security Departments that says only migrants with ties to transnational criminal organizations can be sent to Guant\u00e1namo Bay.<\/p>\n