GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - The year was 1994, the location: U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants were living within the naval station. From the airfield to the golf course, more than 10,000 migrants were being housed. As with any sufficiently large population, there were troublemakers, and while the U.S. and Cuba negotiated how best to handle the crisis, those troublemakers had to have a place to go.
The first was MAG-291, a place for those migrants who committed minor infractions. People were held there for approximately 7-30 days, depending on the severity of their misconduct. The second was Camp X-Ray, a facility that would 20 years later become known for housing the first detainees from the Global War on Terror. X-Ray, was a purpose-built area used to house migrants who broke the law or seriously endangered the safety of the rest of the population. At the time, NAVSTA was divided into sections named for the phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie, and so on.
The cap took it’s name from the section it was in, X-Ray. According to a 1995 report by the National
Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, “from a security perspective Camp X-Ray was impressive, although it was not a prison as some have suggested. Infractions committed by detainees included theft, assault and battery, prostitution and black market activities. Their segregation was intended to avoid a breakdown or disruption of law, order and discipline in the camps.” X-Ray, played a key role in the historic mission known as Operation Sea Signal.
Sea Signal was a result of Fidel Castro’s decision in 1994 to allow Cubans to leave the island, where previously they were forbidden to do so. Immediately, an exodus of thousands of migrants flooded across the ocean headed for Florida. U.S. Coast Guard and Navy vessels were dispatched to intercept those migrants and to ensure their safety.
From 1994-1996, tens of thousands of migrants flooded GTMO, at times up to 3,200 new arrivals per day. When the Cuban migrant crisis began, there were already more than 14,000 Haitian refugees from a separate crisis here. With existing camps full, the personnel here had to move quickly to prepare for the more than 34,000 additional Cuban migrants. Active duty and reserve components from all four services, as well as various civilian organizations, such as the U.S. Coast Guard at the time, constituted Joint Task Force 160, Joint Task Force 180, and Joint Task Group Bulkeley. These three organizational structures combined forces to handle an unprecedented
mission.
The report praised the Troopers involved in the operation; “With the exception of the Coast guard (sic) and some of the civilian agencies, most participants in this operation had never experienced anything similar, nor had they been trained to conduct a military operation of this type … The ability of leaders to forge their units into a common team in very difficult circumstances speaks highly of the U.S. military’s system of training individuals and units and employing them together in effective joint force packages.” At the height of the crisis, with 50,000 migrants on the ground at GTMO, there were only 8,000 Troopers in the JTF to assist them. Their efforts went above and beyond and were recognized in a 1996 report compiled by the National Defense University INSS for helping to save more than 60,000 migrants, sheltering them and then ensuring their safe immigration to the U.S. or return to their homelands.
“In a broad sense, Sea Signal is an indicator of the U.S. Military’s (sic) success as an institution; by recruiting high-quality people, training those people in ways that enhance flexibility, making the right investments in professional military education for leaders, and selecting the right commanders,” according to the INSS report.