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Private Corp Running Trump’s Guantánamo Migrant Prison Accused of Multiple Civil Rights Abuses [1]

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Date: 2025-02-28

Hoping not to get laid off? Looking to make some extra cash; government-provided? Got a few tents lying around your property; maybe an empty garage? Able to respond to detainees with physical force and/or solitary confinement? Feel capable of ordering a s**tload of Ramen from Amazon? Here’s the deal: Get some family members or friends together and hammer out an 5-bullet-point proposal for housing immigrants waiting to be processed and deported, and send it off to Elon Musk.

Ooops: Too Late!

AKIMA Global Services (https://www.akima.com/resources/), which is owned by the Nana Regional Corporation, has already established a strong foothold in the immigrant deportation market. Akima’s website boasts: “Driving America’s Missions Forward: Akima is a global enterprise powering some of the most critical, cutting-edge work in the federal government.” The “cutting edge” work it is doing these days is the detention of high risk as well as low risk migrants.

Trump’s January 29 executive order directed the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to increase its capacity to hold up to 30,000 migrants. The first phase of expansion has already begun, with the installation of tent structures capable of housing 2,000 individuals, Latin Times reported (https://www.latintimes.com/trump-guantanamo-bay-migrant-detention-center-could-cost-taxpayers-billions-575210).

The Latin Times reported on February 27, that “Since the executive order, over 150 migrants previously on U.S. soil have been transferred to Guantánamo, marking a significant shift in policy. Reports indicate that the majority of the detainees are Venezuelan nationals, with the Trump administration linking them to the Tren de Aragua gang. However, CBS News reported last week that ‘low-risk’ migrants with no criminal history have also been transferred” (https://www.latintimes.com/firm-running-guantanamo-migrant-jail-accused-over-rights-abuses-inappropriate-use-force-report-576213).

The Guardian reported that “Akima Global Services runs at least five migrant detention centers,... including the Buffalo detention center in New York, the Port Isabel facility in Texas, the North Krome service processing center in Florida and the Florence service processing center in Arizona. … [It] also runs guard operations at three migrant detention spaces in Puerto Rico.”

According to The Guardian, Akima, a Virginia-headquartered company, is “now running the US government’s immigrant detention center at the Guantánamo Bay naval base on a lucrative contract that has been the subject of critical audits and a civil rights complaint over conditions at three other migrant lockups it has run within the US, has been contracted with to run the concentration camp/detention center” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/20/guantanamo-migrant-jail-akima-revealed).

The Guardian reported that the company, “has over 40 subsidiaries and more than 2,000 contracts with the US government. From IT maintenance to armed security, with work stretching from Saudi Arabia to Arizona, Akima provides government contracting services to dozens of federal agencies.”

At it Miami facility, a federal audit report noted instances of “’inappropriate use of force’ – including guards pepper-spraying a man in solitary confinement even though he posed no threat to them, the report said.”

“In August of 2024, Akima Infrastructure Protection was given a $163.4m contract by the Biden administration to run the migrant detention facility at Guantánamo through June of 2029,” The Guardian pointed out. “Now, as Trump expands migrant detention there, Akima’s role is drawing attention.”

“The Guantánamo Bay military base is seared in the minds of the world as a dark site of torture and impunity,” said Jesse Franzblau, senior policy analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center, told The Guardian.

“There is no rational justification for shipping off immigrants to Guantánamo Bay, which should not be used to detain any human beings. Sending people there now without any due process or access to counsel flies in the face of US and international law.”

The Guardian reported that “Ice awarded Akima Infrastructure Protection a government contract to run the stricter detention section of the migrant facility. The company was required to guarantee they could quickly expand capacity at the site for up to 400 migrants with the construction of a “tent city”, according to a US government contracting website” (https://sam.gov/opp/e5ee93fecfde4177be085366c3a7581a/view).

“Guantánamo is an example of how immigration enforcement is expanding past Ice – it is involving the Department of Defense, it is going offshore, in a remote location, to a place that is a place symbolic of abuse and torture,” said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network.

She added: “It is that much more infuriating to know that there are massive corporations profiting off of people’s lives and the abuse that people are experiencing in immigration detention.”

While Akima Global Services has been the subject of civil right inquiries, don’t cry for the company officials: “Akima’s subsidiaries contract with agencies within the departments of defense, energy, interior and others. Some of Akima’s subsidiaries provide government buyers with IT services, equipment maintenance and other services. Akima contractors also maintain US military helicopters in Saudi Arabia and provide training to Saudi military forces,” The Guardian reported.

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