The Administration is unlikely to inform the foreigners’ home governments about the impending transfers to the infamous military facility, including close US allies such as Britain, Germany and France, the officials said.
The preparations include medical screening for 9000 individuals to determine whether they are healthy enough to be sent to Guantanamo, notorious for its history as a prison for suspected terrorists and others captured on battlefields in the aftermath of 9/11.
Some of these details were reported earlier by Politico.
It is far from clear whether the facilities there can accommodate 9000 new detainees, an influx that would amount to a massive increase from the several hundred migrants moved to and from the base earlier this year.
But Trump Administration officials say the plan is necessary due to a need to free up capacity at domestic detention facilities, which have become overcrowded amid President Donald Trump’s pledge to implement the biggest deportation of undocumented migrants in American history.
A document reviewed by the Post said that “GTMO,” the government acronym for the base, “is not at capacity”.
In January, Trump announced he would send as many as 30,000 migrants to the facility.
Scores of migrants held at the base in March were sent back to facilities in Louisiana in a move critics of the Administration’s immigration crackdown suspected was due to capacity issues.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. The White House did not provide comment.
A defence official said that “ongoing missions at Naval Station Guantanamo remain unchanged, and we do not comment on any speculative future missions”.
DHS intends to “minimise” the time detainees spend at the Caribbean base, but the White House could decide to use the facility for longer-term detention, according to an official document.
The move to dramatically expand transfers is expected to draw criticism from US allies concerned about the welfare of their citizens at the military base.
It became a global symbol of torture and abuse in the wake of counterterrorism tactics pursued by Washington following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
US officials said the individuals being vetted for transfer are in the US illegally.
Many of the detainees’ home countries have told the US they are willing to accept their citizens but have not moved quickly enough in the eyes of the DHS, officials said.
The plans, which are subject to change, come as immigration hardliners inside Trump’s Cabinet push for more deportations and arrests of undocumented migrants.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3000 arrests for ICE every day,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News last month, pledging to increase the numbers.
White House border tsar Tom Homan has expressed similar sentiments: “We’ve got to increase these arrests and removals”.
The DHS recently requested expansion of a medium-security detention facility at the base from 140 to 300 detainees, said a congressional aide familiar with the matter.
US forces at the base erected a tent city earlier this year - 195 structures with a capacity to house more than 3000 people - in anticipation of a large influx of detainees.
But that never occurred, as flights dropped off modest numbers of people and the capacity of available facilities was not exceeded.
Base personnel took down the tents through the northern spring. None of the original tents were left standing and had never been used, a defence official said today NZT, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
