Background & Overview

What is Guantanamo?

Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp—commonly known as Guantanamo or GTMO—is a United States military prison located within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on the southeastern coast of Cuba. The facility was established in January 2002 under the administration of President George W. Bush, following the attacks of September 11, 2001. It was designed to detain individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism or associated activities, as part of the broader War on Terror.

From its inception, Guantanamo has operated outside the traditional bounds of the U.S. legal system. Detainees were declared “enemy combatants,” a status used to justify holding them indefinitely without the formal protections afforded under U.S. criminal law or the Geneva Conventions. Most detainees were captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or other countries and transferred to Guantanamo without formal charges, legal representation, or timely review of their cases.

Over the past two decades, Guantanamo has become a global symbol of human rights violations, legal opacity, and moral controversy. Numerous detainees were held for years without trial, and many were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics that international bodies and human rights organizations classify as torture. These include practices such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sensory manipulation, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, and prolonged solitary confinement.

The facility has been condemned by former U.S. officials, international legal experts, the United Nations, and countless civil society groups, who argue that it undermines the rule of law, damages America’s global credibility, and perpetuates injustice.

Why is Guantanamo Still Open?

Despite repeated promises by U.S. presidents and mounting global pressure, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility remains open more than two decades after it was first established. The reasons for its continued operation are complex, rooted in a combination of legal constraints, political opposition, and institutional inertia.

• Congressional Roadblocks: Since 2011, Congress has imposed legislative bans on transferring detainees to the U.S. mainland for trial or imprisonment. These laws have significantly hampered executive efforts to close the facility, even when there is political will to do so.

• Legal Limbo: Many of the men still held at Guantanamo are in a state of legal purgatory—neither formally charged with crimes nor cleared for release. Without clear legal pathways or agreements for repatriation, they remain imprisoned indefinitely.

• National Security Concerns: Some policymakers argue that closing Guantanamo could pose a threat to national security, citing fears that released detainees might return to militant activity. However, research has consistently shown that recidivism among released detainees is rare, and many have reintegrated peacefully into society with support from host countries.

• Presidential Inaction and Inconsistency: While President Barack Obama campaigned on a platform that included closing Guantanamo, his administration faced stiff resistance from Congress and only succeeded in reducing the number of detainees. President Donald Trump reversed that policy, signing an executive order to keep the prison open. President Joe Biden has renewed the goal of closure, but his administration has taken only incremental steps, mostly involving quiet diplomatic negotiations for detainee transfers.

The result is a prison that persists not because of strategic necessity, but due to political gridlock, legal ambiguity, and a lack of coordinated international action.

Key Facts and Figures

• Total Number of Detainees Since 2002:
  Over 780 men have been detained at Guantanamo Bay since it opened. At the height of its operation in 2003, the prison held nearly 680 individuals.

• Current Detainees (as of 2024):
  Just 30 men remain imprisoned at Guantanamo. Of those, approximately half have never been charged with a crime, and many have already been cleared for release but remain detained due to diplomatic and logistical challenges.

• Countries Involved:
  Detainees have come from more than 40 countries, with the largest numbers originating from Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Many were transferred to Guantanamo based on unverified intelligence, mistaken identity, or third-party allegations.

• Financial Cost:
  The U.S. government spends around $540 million per year to operate the Guantanamo facility—equating to roughly $13 million per prisoner annually. This makes it one of the most expensive detention operations in the world, far exceeding the costs of incarceration in federal or military prisons on U.S. soil.

• Torture and Abuse:
  Extensive documentation confirms that detainees at Guantanamo have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Techniques such as waterboarding, stress positions, isolation, mock executions, and force-feeding of hunger strikers were used under the guise of intelligence gathering. These practices have been condemned by the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and various independent investigations, including the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture.