Mexico’s foreign minister, Juan Ramon de la Fuente, declared on Tuesday that Mexico will not permit the United States to transfer Mexican migrants to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Instead, Mexico prefers to receive the migrants directly, a position conveyed to the U.S. embassy via a diplomatic note.
This announcement follows White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s confirmation that the Trump administration has initiated flights transporting detained individuals from the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay, although she didn’t specify their nationalities. Leavitt stated that the first flights carrying undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay were underway, fulfilling President Trump’s, Pete Hegseth’s, and Kristi Noem’s pledge to utilize the facility for undocumented individuals who have committed crimes against U.S. citizens.
President Trump intends to expand the detention camp’s capacity to hold up to 30,000 “criminal illegal aliens.” The base’s history of alleged inhumane treatment and torture of detainees has drawn international criticism.
According to the Pentagon, one flight from Fort Bliss to Guantanamo Bay carried approximately a dozen migrants; another departed the U.S. on Monday. These migrants will be housed separately from the 15 existing detainees, which include individuals involved in planning the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel denounced Trump’s plan to send 30,000 migrants to Guantanamo as an “act of brutality,” characterizing it as the imprisonment of forcibly expelled migrants in an illegally occupied territory alongside known torture facilities.
Reuters contributed to this report.