Yes, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is still open. As of early 2026, fifteen men remain held at the U.S. military prison at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, more than twenty-four years after it opened in January 2002. The Trump administration has also used the same naval base since early 2025 to hold immigration detainees in a separate operation.
Who Is Still Held There
The fifteen remaining detainees fall into four groups.
Seven face charges before the military commissions. That group includes Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of plotting the September 11 attacks, along with Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Encep Nurjaman. Two others have already been convicted and sentenced by military commissions: Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul and Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi.1The New York Times. The Guantanamo Docket
Three men have been cleared for transfer but are still imprisoned because the government has not arranged their release to a country willing to take them: Guled Hassan Duran, a Somali national; Muieen Abd al-Sattar, a stateless Rohingya man; and Ismail Ali Faraj Ali Bakush, a Libyan citizen.1The New York Times. The Guantanamo Docket
The final three are sometimes called “forever prisoners.” They are held in indefinite law-of-war detention, with no charges and no recommendation for transfer. Among them is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn, better known as Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian man taken into CIA custody in 2002 whom the government has conceded was never a top al-Qaeda leader. He remains detained in part because he possesses classified knowledge about the CIA’s interrogation program.2The Conversation. Trump Inherits the Guantanamo Prison, Complete With Forever Prisoners The other two are Mustafa Faraj Mohammed, a Libyan, and Muhammad Rahim, an Afghan national.1The New York Times. The Guantanamo Docket
The 9/11 Case Is Still Stuck
The most consequential proceeding at Guantanamo involves the five men charged with orchestrating the September 11 attacks: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. The case has dragged on for well over a decade. All five were held in CIA “black sites” and subjected to what the government called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which compromised evidence and confessions.3NPR. Guantanamo Biden Legacy Bin al-Shibh was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial in September 2023, with psychological conditions attributed to torture in CIA custody, and his case has effectively been separated from the others.2The Conversation. Trump Inherits the Guantanamo Prison, Complete With Forever Prisoners
In mid-2024, the Biden administration announced that Mohammed, bin Attash, and al-Hawsawi had reached plea agreements: guilty pleas in exchange for life sentences without parole, avoiding a death-penalty trial. The deal also required Mohammed to answer questions from victims’ families. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rescinded the agreements two days later, asserting he had sole authority over such deals and had not been properly consulted.4BBC News. Appeals Court Throws Out 9/11 Plea Deal
A military court ruled in December 2024 that Austin’s reversal was improper, putting the deals back on the table. In July 2025, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 to cancel the plea agreements, finding that Austin “indisputably had legal authority” to rescind them. Judge Robert Wilkins dissented, writing that the majority was “ignoring and departing from longstanding principles of well-earned deference” to the military justice system.5NPR. Guantanamo 9/11 Plea Deal Ruling
As of early 2026, the case remains active but in legal limbo. Defense attorneys have been weighing whether to appeal to the full D.C. Circuit or to the U.S. Supreme Court. March 2026 court filings show motions to schedule hearings for entry of pleas and requests for extensions to file petitions for certiorari, alongside ongoing disputes over discovery related to torture and classified evidence.6Office of Military Commissions. Commissions News No death-penalty trial has been scheduled.
Why It Has Never Closed
Every president since George W. Bush has grappled with Guantanamo, and every one has left it open. Bush opened it in 2002 and transferred more than 500 detainees out during his tenure, though the population peaked at nearly 800. Barack Obama signed an executive order two days after his 2009 inauguration to close the facility within a year. Congress blocked that effort by passing annual restrictions, embedded in successive National Defense Authorization Acts, that bar the use of Defense Department funds to transfer any Guantanamo detainee to U.S. soil for any purpose, including criminal prosecution.7Every CRS Report. Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility
Those restrictions have been renewed every year since. The fiscal year 2024 NDAA, signed in December 2023, continued to prohibit such transfers and also barred sending detainees to certain foreign countries. Biden signed the bill but stated the provisions “unduly impair the ability of the executive branch to determine when and where to prosecute Guantánamo Bay detainees and where to send them upon release.”8GovInfo. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 Signing Statement
Obama submitted a formal closure plan to Congress in February 2016, arguing the facility cost nearly $450 million a year to operate and served as a propaganda tool for terrorist recruitment. The plan called for transferring cleared detainees abroad and moving the rest to secure facilities on the U.S. mainland, projecting savings of up to $85 million annually.9Obama White House Archives. Remarks by the President on Plan to Close the Prison at Guantanamo Bay Congress rejected it. Trump then signed an executive order keeping the facility open. Biden quietly pursued transfers through the National Security Council and the Defense Department, reducing the population from 40 to 15, but never secured the congressional cooperation needed for full closure.10NBC News. Biden Quietly Moves to Start Closing Guantanamo
Cleared for Transfer Doesn’t Mean Free
Being cleared by the Periodic Review Board only means the U.S. no longer considers a detainee a threat requiring detention. Actually leaving Guantanamo requires a receiving country. Recent transfers show the mechanism can work: in December 2024, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu was sent to Kenya, and two men who had pleaded guilty to war crimes tied to the 2002 Bali bombings were repatriated to Malaysia.11CNN. US Transfers Guantanamo Bay Detainee to Kenya12U.S. Department of Defense. Guantanamo Bay Detainee Transfer Announced3NPR. Guantanamo Biden Legacy
For the three currently cleared, no such arrangement has been made. Court challenges have not sped things up either. Guled Hassan Duran, the Somali detainee cleared for transfer in 2021, filed a habeas corpus petition in 2016. As of May 2026, the federal district court had not ruled on pending motions or set a hearing schedule. On May 6, 2026, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a mandamus petition with the D.C. Circuit asking the appeals court to either order Duran’s release or direct the lower court to adjudicate his case, noting that nearly ten years had passed without action.13Center for Constitutional Rights. Somali Man Detained at Guantanamo 20 Years Asks Federal Appeals Court Duran has never been charged with any offense and has been imprisoned since 2006. The Supreme Court held in Boumediene v. Bush (2008) that detainees have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal civilian courts, but in practice those cases have moved very slowly.14Human Rights Watch. US Supreme Court Rules Guantanamo Detainees Are Entitled to Habeas Corpus
The New Migrant Detention Operation
In January 2025, President Trump signed a memorandum directing expansion of the Migrant Operations Center at the naval base “to full capacity,” with the stated aim of providing detention space for “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”15The White House. Expanding Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to Full Capacity Trump announced plans for capacity to hold 30,000 detainees.16The Guardian. Trump Signs Executive Order on Guantanamo Detention Center
The actual operation has been much smaller. By May 2026, capacity stood at roughly 400 beds and the facility held six immigration detainees, all Haitian nationals, though 832 people had cycled through since the program began in February 2025. Government personnel assigned to the operation numbered more than 580, outnumbering detainees by about 100 to 1. The projected cost to the military had climbed to $73 million.17CBS News. Trump Guantanamo Bay Migrants
The immigration operation is separate from the war-on-terror detention facility, and it has drawn its own lawsuits. In February 2025, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other groups filed Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Noem in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging denial of attorney access. Early detainees were removed from Guantanamo before the court could rule on a temporary restraining order, but new detainees were subsequently sent there, and plaintiffs filed an amended complaint seeking class certification. The government moved to dismiss in June 2025, arguing the case was moot because detainees had been transferred out of U.S. custody; plaintiffs countered that the transfers were “inherently transitory” and that the government was deliberately removing named plaintiffs to evade judicial review. As of mid-2026, the court had not ruled.18ACLU of DC. Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Kristi Noem19Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Noem In a separate proceeding in December 2025, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary ruling describing the immigration detention at Guantanamo as “impermissibly punitive” and likely unlawful, though the court stopped short of blocking the operation.17CBS News. Trump Guantanamo Bay Migrants
What It Costs to Keep Open
Guantanamo’s detention operation is extraordinarily expensive relative to any comparable facility. The Obama administration estimated the annual operating cost at nearly $450 million in 2015.9Obama White House Archives. Remarks by the President on Plan to Close the Prison at Guantanamo Bay An analysis covering 2010 through 2013 put the four-year average at $487 million a year, and total spending since 2002 had reached $4.8 billion by that point. A 2013 Defense Department calculation put the per-detainee cost at roughly $1.6 million per prisoner per year; a separate estimate placed it closer to $2.7 million.20American Progress. Guantanamo: America’s Billion Dollar Folly Holding an inmate at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, costs about $78,000 a year.21House Armed Services Committee Democrats. The Cost of Detention at Guantanamo Bay With only fifteen detainees remaining and hundreds of staff supporting the operation, the per-detainee cost has only grown more extreme.