Pentagon Official Pressed on Costs of Housing Migrants and Troops at Guantanamo Bay

Readiness and Troop Reassignment

• ❓ Rep. Jill Tokuda questioned the reassignment of service members from other branches to Guantanamo Bay, asking if it compromises readiness and posture in other areas.
• ⚠️ The Pentagon official stated that their reporting tools currently show no degradation in training or readiness.
• 🤷 However, the official acknowledged that it's up to the individual services to assess the impact on readiness, and they don't have visibility into where all troops are coming from.

Migrant Housing at Guantanamo Bay

• 🎯 The Pentagon plans for migrant operations and estimates that housing 30,000 migrants would require approximately 9,000 service members.
• 💰 Cost estimates for this operation, including housing, meals, and transport, were not readily available, despite the projection of 9,000 service members.
• ⚠️ Currently, there is no hard-structure capacity at Guantanamo Bay to house 30,000 potentially high-risk migrants.

Migrant Threat Assessment and Housing

• ⚖️ Determinations on which migrants to house at Guantanamo are made by ICE, DHS, and CBP, considering both high-threat and lower-threat individuals.
• 💡 Over 30% of migrants previously housed were considered low-threat with no criminal record beyond illegal border crossing.
• 🚫 ICE indicated that high-risk migrants cannot be housed in soft-sided tents, highlighting the need for hard-sided facilities.

Dual-Use Military Bases

• 🏠 The use of military bases for dual purposes (military operations and migrant housing) raises concerns about the impact on readiness and budget constraints for operations and maintenance (O&M) and military construction (MILCON) dollars.
• ❓ This question regarding the impact of dual-use bases was deferred for a written response.