The first U.S. military flight deporting migrants from the United States to Guantanamo Bay landed in Cuba on Tuesday evening, according to a U.S. official. It was the first step in an expected surge in the number of migrants sent to the U.

As tents went up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold migrants, attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon were still trying to determine whether it was legal to take the unprecedented step of flying migrants from the US southern border to the facility,