Cuba rejects U.S. decision to incarcerate migrants in the 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 the U.S. is expelling or intends to expel are victims of that government's own plundering policies and fill labor needs that have historically existed in agriculture, construction, industry, services and other sectors of the U.S. economy.  Others are the result of border facilitations to enter the country, of selective and politically motivated rules 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 U.S. economy.  They have jobs, homes, have created families and planned their respective lives in the United States.

The territory where it is proposed to imprison them does not belong to the United States.  It is a portion of Cuban territory in the eastern province of Guantanamo, which remains under illegal military occupation and against the will of the Cuban nation.  That 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, never tried 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 lend itself to errors, accidents and misinterpretations that could alter stability and cause serious consequences.

Havana 29 January 2025