Miami, United States. – Cuban activist Yeilis Torres Cruz lived in the first person the uncertainty and isolation facing migrants held in the Guantanamo Naval Base. After being intercepted in the sea by the United States Coast Guard in 2022, Torres spent seven months at the East detention Center of Cuba before being transferred to the United States, where he finally received asylum.
“The most difficult thing is uncertainty and waiting for the long process”, Torres told the AFP agency from Miamiwhere currently resides. During his arrest in Guantanamo, he says he had no access to legal assistance and could only communicate with his children in Cuba for short calls every three days.
For decades, the Naval Base of Guantanamo has been used to house Caribbean migrants intercepted in the sea. However, its image has been marked by the use of the Pentagon detention Center, where inmates linked to terrorist attacks remain, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, indicated as the September 11 brain.
Donald Trump’s decision to use the Guantanamo detention center to house up to 30,000 migrants has generated criticism of human rights organizations, which warn about possible prolonged detentions without adequate supervision. Human Rights Watch He warned that this practice “violates human rights and can be equivalent to torture.”
Torres Cruz, 38, was the only one of a group of 17 Cuban migrants rescued in the high seas that was transferred to Guantanamo. He explains that upon his arrival, she was handcuffed and forced to wear dark glasses so that she could not “see anything” as they transported it inside the base. According to their testimony, some migrants were confined in their rooms for months while waiting to be interviewed by state department officials.
Among the detainees with Torres were 21 migrants, including 18 Cubans, two Haitians and a citizen of the Dominican Republic. In the group there were also families with children and a pregnant woman. Torres says that minors had no access to education or could interact with the children of US personnel at the base.
Despite the difficult conditions, Torres does not support the calls to close the detention center for migrants in Guantanamo. “They gave us the opportunity to work,” he said, remembering that he could earn some money participating in cleaning beaches inside the base.
After seven months in Guantanamo, Torres was transferred to a migrant detention center in Broward County, Florida, where he spent four more months before obtaining asylum in the United States. Currently, he works in a textile factory in Florida and hopes to meet with his family, while other migrants from his group were relocated in countries such as Canada and Australia.
