The Biden administration is looking for a private contractor to operate a migrant detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, multiple news outlets are reporting.
NBC News noted a government advertising listing said one of the requirements is that some of the guards speak Spanish and Haitian Creole.
But the Department of Homeland Security said Haitian migrants now at the southern U.S. border will not be sent to the facility.
The network noted a little-known immigrant holding center on the base has a capacity of 120 people. A solicitation of bids by the DHS said it “will have an estimated daily population of 20 people,” according to NBC News.
“The service provider shall be responsible to maintain on site the necessary equipment to erect temporary housing facilities for populations that exceed 120 and up to 400 migrants in a surge event,” the network quoted the contract solicitation as saying.
The Washington Examiner reported the government listing came as mostly Haitians surged at the southern border in Del Rio, Texas.
The agency “is not and will not send Haitian nationals being encountered at the southwest border to the Migrant Operations Center in Guantanamo Bay,” a spokesman for DHS told the outlet.
“The contract was initially awarded in 2002 with the current term ending on May 31, 2022.”
Many Haitian migrants camped in the Texas border town are being released in the U.S., according to two U.S. officials.
The Associated Press reported Haitians have been freed on a “very, very large scale” in recent days.
Others, however, were being sent back to Haiti on expulsion flights.
