WHERE THE STORM NEVER REALLY PASSES

Guantánamo Bay, once a symbol of the ‘war on terror’, has emerged as a flashpoint in Donald Trump’s immigration battles, exposing deep tensions between America’s security, legality and moral commitments

- AJISH P.

It may have been Hurricane Melissa, which exploded into a Category 5 storm on October 27, that inadvertently saved 18 undocumented immigrants from the Guantánamo Bay detention centre. As the storm swept across the Caribbean, the American National Weather Service issued warnings that it could reach Cuba, prompting officials to evacuate the group quietly. They were flown by a special aircraft to Guatemala and El Salvador, their names and nationalities withheld. The operation, conducted in secrecy, also allowed the Trump administration to wriggle out of a legal crisis. It came just days before a federal court hearing that could redefine the legal boundaries of offshore migrant detention.

Guantánamo Bay has returned to the headlines as the Trump administration has started using it to detain undocumented migrants. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum in January this year, instructing the expansion of the Migrant Operations Centre at Guantánamo to full capacity. The memorandum directed the secretaries of defence and homeland security to detain high-priority criminal aliens. Trump claimed that the base could hold up to 30,000 people, presenting it as part of his promise to carry out the largest deportation in American history.

The move drew immediate condemnation from human rights organisations. They argued that it exploited the base's peculiar legal status—technically outside US territory but under American control—which allowed migrants to be held in a jurisdictional gap with limited access to legal counsel and courts. The American Civil Liberties Union launched a legal challenge, arguing that the practice was unconstitutional and violated international law.