Guantanamo Bay rapidly readied in response to Trump deportation plans

Previously, the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Centre (MOC) held primarily migrants picked up by US authorities at sea.

Under new plans, it is set to house thousands of migrants accused of committing crimes, who the Trump administration has branded "the worst of the worst".

Satellite images captured on 4 February by Planet Labs show preparations at the site on the island of Cuba have been carried out at a rapid pace.

Three areas have been readied for arrivals, with tents springing up across the facility.

The images from 4 February show 140 newly appeared tents at the facility. A comparison with previous satellite imagery shows all were set up within a five-day period.

The area with the most tents is in the north of the Migrant Operations Centre, where 49 were seen.

A fenced off area next to the airfield had a similar number, with 48 of them being put up in recent days.

On a nearby area of open ground surrounded by huts, a grid of 43 tents was midway through being set up at the time the imagery was taken.

While tents are visible, it is unclear exactly what they will be used for, and whether additional infrastructure will be added.

An area of newly cleared ground in the northeast of the site suggests work is still under way to prepare the MOC for thousands of migrants, and the military and civilian personnel tasked with running the facility.

Photographs released by the US Navy show its sailors working alongside members of the US Coast Guard working to set up tents at the facility.

The Guantanamo MOC lies on the eastern side of Guantanamo Bay, next to the base's airfield. The detention centre that made the base infamous during the Iraq War is on the western side of the bay.

Using publicly available flight tracking data, Sky News has followed two flights that appear to have carried migrants and personnel to Guantanamo in recent days.

The first of these took place on 4 February. The US department of Homeland Security released images showing detainees being taken on board a military C-17 transport plane, which departed at 11.02am local time.

Flight data shows it approached Guantanamo just over five hours later, at which point it stopped transmitting its location.

The second flight left Travis Air Force Base in California at 10.55pm on 5 February. Like the previous flight, it stopped transmitting as it approached its destination.

Currently, the Migrant Operations Centre at Guantanamo is partly operated by Akima Infrastructure Protection, a contractor that provides personnel at numerous migrant facilities in the US.

While it's unclear whether this is related to the expansion of the Guantanamo facility, Akima currently has a job advertisement posted for a Security and Custody Officer at the site.

The job description states applicants "Bilingual in Spanish or Haitian Creole and English" are preferred, and lists responsibilities including security patrols, and "maintenance of equipment, including the set-up and take down of tents, cots, generators, and lighting".

The US has controlled Guantanamo Bay since 1901. It currently occupies the land under a 1903 treaty, which the current communist Cuban government has labelled illegitimate.

While under American control, the land has been used to house a naval base and detention facility. The latter has made the base infamous internationally.

During America's wars in the Middle East, detainees were routinely sent to Guantanamo. In 2022, a press release from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights described conditions faced by those held there as "arbitrary detention without trial accompanied by torture."