Guantánamo Report

12/01/2026

Guantanamo today has 15 wartime prisoners, all held in one facility run by a Pentagon staff of 800 military police and other government workers. A look at the military operation that began 24 years ago with these first 20 prisoners, one of whom is still there today.

The prison has outlasted the war in Afghanistan, has employed tens of thousands of temporary troops and holds six men charged but not yet tried in death penalty cases.

07/01/2026

The next pretrial hearings are scheduled for late March.

The decision removes a chance for the defendants to resolve the long-running case with the death penalty taken off the table. Instead, pretrial hearings are likely to resume.

07/01/2026

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro invoked prisoner-of-war status — something the last Latin American leader who was toppled by U.S. forces eventually got, along with special federal prison accommodations and International Red Cross visits. Here’s a look at Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega’s “presidential suite” in Miami. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/us/politics/maduro-prisoner-of-war-noriega.html

The argument worked for Manuel Antonio Noriega, who wore a uniform at trial and received special P.O.W. privileges after his conviction.

31/12/2025

Parallel missions. Different legal justifications. A look at the Coast Guard’s decades-long, law-and-order role stopping suspected drug smugglers in go-fast boats, even as the Pentagon has been blowing up similar targets. With some surprising results.

Cutters are still stopping smugglers and seizing drugs, but the prosecutions of go-fast boat crews are dwindling in a realignment of federal resources.

29/12/2025

Just in: The new judge in the 9/11 case has canceled next month's pretrial hearing at Guantanamo Bay. The long-running case is now in recess until late March.

(The next hearing is scheduled to take place 23 years after the United States captured the lead defendant, Khalid Shaik Mohammed, in Pakistan and spirited him off to CIA detention, the decision that has bedeviled the pretrial process.)

Meantime, prosecutors can pursue one appeal, to reinstate the suppressed statements of one defendant. And lawyers for the three other defendants may hear whether they can argue for reinstatement of the on-again, off-again plea deal.

The case against the men accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

19/12/2025

The 9/11 case has gone on so long that the new judge entered the Air Force after the defendants made their first court appearance, following years in secret C.I.A. prisons.

--This week's dispatch: Guantanamo court gets back to business. Briefly.

The long-running case had been on hold for nearly a year because of higher court appeals and the retirement of the military judge.

18/12/2025

Good morning from Camp Justice at Guantanamo Bay. The Sept. 11 hearings are in recess. Now that the two new judges have submitted their qualifications and sat on the bench to take attendance, we have updated our trial guide.
Here's the link: https://www.nytimes.com/article/september-11-trial-guantanamo-bay.html

17/12/2025

For more than a century, this Black soldier from Virginia was remembered by nearly no one. Then this year, someone at the Pentagon found a use for him.

17/12/2025

El traslado de más de una veintena de hombres esta semana reanudó una operación de deportación del gobierno de Trump en la base después de una pausa de dos meses.

El traslado de más de una veintena de hombres esta semana reanudó una operación de deportación del gobierno de Trump en la base después de una pausa de dos meses.

17/12/2025

Good morning from Guantanamo Bay. The Trump administration says the 22 Cubans held here, an apparent first for this ICE detention and deportation center, include some people with criminal records. Most are in routine, dorm-style confinement and they have provided no identities for verification.

Other still unanswered questions: Was this a pure menacing, message move or did they need to restart migrant operations here for 22 people after a two-month hiatus? Will they be repatriated? By land, air or sea?

DHS put out this statement last night: “We have been clear: if you come to our country illegally, you could end up in in Guantanamo Bay, CECOT, or Alligator Alcatraz. Some of the illegal aliens brought to Guantanamo Bay on the most recent flight include those with criminal histories for homicide, kidnapping, assault, battery, obstructing law enforcement, and cruelty toward a child. Illegal aliens should LEAVE NOW. If they don't, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”
--Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary.

The transfer of nearly two dozen men this week restarted a Trump administration deportation operation on the base after a two-month hiatus.

16/12/2025

No strong reaction: The new military judge in the 9/11 case upon reading The Times article about his appointment as the fifth judge to preside in this iteration of the case at Guantanamo Bay.
And here is a link to the article that passed judicial review. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/us/politics/sept-11-case-new-judge.html

16/12/2025

SCOOP: The ICE detention operation at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is back in business after a two-month hiatus -- with the arrival of 22 Cubans from Louisiana who are designated for deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security has yet to say whether, or how, they will be repatriated: Through a gate at the fence line on this Navy base that is surrounded by a Cuban minefield? Or by an ICE charter like the one that brought them here Sunday?

The transfer of nearly two dozen men this week restarted a Trump administration deportation operation on the base after a two-month hiatus.