[3] In 1992, the United States established Operation Sea Signal to prepare for a mass migration of refugees from Haiti and Cuba.

[citation needed] In December 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the United States intervention in Afghanistan, Joint Task Force 160 was reactivated.

Camp X-Ray was prepared as a temporary location for the detention of people captured in Afghanistan who were believed to be part of the Taliban or al-Qaeda, neither of which the United States recognized as legal governments.

Camp 4, opened in February 2003, featured communal style living areas, similar to a military barracks, and was used to house "compliant" detainees.

[6] Camp 6, opened in November 2006, is patterned after a medium security prison with "pods" housing 10 to 20 detainees with individual cells but sharing a common living area.

In Rasul v Bush (2004), the Supreme Court held that the detainees had the right to counsel and to challenge their detentions at an impartial tribunal, according to habeas corpus.

On 29 June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that they had the minimal protection of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions in that detainees must be housed and treated humanely, and that they had the right to an impartial tribunal to hear charges against them.

In Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the Supreme Court held that the detainees' right to habeas corpus could not be taken away by the Military Commission Act of 2006, which they ruled was unconstitutional.

The officers commanding the Joint Detention Group, also known as the warden, have included: Enlisted personnel live in pre-fabricated quarters, similar to shipping containers.

According to Commander Daniel Jones, JTF-GTMO's Staff Judge Advocate:[13] The chow here is probably the best I've had and a mainstay of each day's activities.