Cuban refugees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base



Over the years a varying number of Cuban refugees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base have found refuge there. In the 1990s several thousand refugees were held at the base, for years. Most of the refugees were housed in a tent city on the re-purposed airstrip that would later be used to house the complex used for the Guantanamo military commissions. The refugees who represented discipline or security problems were held on the site that would later become Camp XRay, the initial site of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Small numbers of refugees occasionally slip into the camp to this day. According to a February 6, 2012, report from Agence France Presse ten political dissidents slipped into the base in November 2011.