While the Obama Administration expressed an intention to close the detention facilities at the naval station as early as its first month in office, the Administration maintains that it has no intention or plan to alter the status of the naval station itself. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay: The 45 square miles of land on which the station sits have been leased from the Cuban government since the early years of the twentieth century. The naval station provides logistical support to the detention and military commission facilities located within its boundaries. While the principal reasons for the declaration of war by both Madrid and Washington centered on U.S. intervention in an ongoing indigenous revolution in the Spanish colony of Cuba—a precipitating event was the sinking of the battleship USS Maine by an explosion in Havana harbor in February—the war was fought on Cuban and Puerto Rican soil in the Caribbean and on Guam and in the Philippines in the Pacific. As bilateral relations deteriorated in the aftermath of the Cuban revolution, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 3, 1961. The Cuban government cut off the supply of water to the naval station on February 6, 1964, and the naval station has remained self-sustaining in water and electrical power in the years since. The Naval Station's Role Changes

In the early 1990s, the naval station was used to house a sizeable number of Haitians and Cubans fleeing their countries by boat and seeking asylum. The migrant population gradually fell thereafter, with the last of the temporary population leaving by the end of January 1996. Joint Task Force-Guantanamo was created in November 2002 to operate the newly created detention facilities. The Legal Status of the Land Lease

As previously noted, the wording of Article III of the 1934 Treaty of Relations between the United States and Cuba provides that:
Until the two contracting parties agree to the modification or abrogation of the stipulations of the agreement in regard to the lease to the United States of America of lands in Cuba for coaling and naval station …., the stipulations of that agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantanamo shall continue in effect. The territorial limits of the naval station remain as they were in 1934, unless the United States abandons Guantanamo Bay (effectively ending the lease) or the two governments reach an agreement to modify its boundaries. A second question is whether the President has the authority to "abandon" the naval station without action by Congress. 4678 ) would prohibit any action:
[T]o modify, abrogate, or replace the stipulations, agreements, and commitments contained in the Guantanamo Lease Agreements, or to impair or abandon the jurisdiction and control of the United States over United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unless specifically authorized or otherwise provided by—
(1) a statute that is enacted on or after the date of the enactment of this Act;
(2) a treaty that is ratified with the advice and consent of the Senate on or after the date of the enactment of this Act; or
(3) a modification of the Treaty Between the United States of America and Cuba signed at Washington, DC, on May 29, 1934, that is ratified with the advice and consent of the Senate on or after the date of the enactment of this Act. The House of Representatives subsequently passed this language in Section 1099B of S. 2943 , the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2017. Moreover, it does not expressly prohibit the negotiation of lease modifications with the existing government of Cuba. There is no such requirement, however, for military installations located overseas. Consequently, it appears that there are no statutory prohibitions against closing an overseas military installation. 114-92 ) impose practical impediments to closing the naval station by restricting the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States or to foreign countries. Casting the abandonment of Guantanamo Bay as a recognition of Cuba's sovereignty over the area and the end of a military occupation (the Castro government has regarded U.S. presence at Guantanamo to be an "illegal occupation" of its territory) could have implications related to the President's power to recognize foreign sovereigns and the territory they control, a power the Supreme Court has held belongs exclusively to the President. Section 1036 of the 2016 NDAA prohibits the use of Department of Defense funds for fiscal year 2016:
(1) to close or abandon United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba;
(2) to relinquish control of Guantanamo Bay to the Republic of Cuba; or
(3) to implement a material modification to the Treaty Between the United States of America and Cuba signed at Washington, D.C. on May 29, 1934 that constructively closes United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay. Current sanctions in place against Cuba could make it difficult to give or sell any property to the government of Cuba.
This report briefly outlines the history of the establishment of the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during the first decade of the twentieth century, its changing relationship to the community around it, and its heightened importance with military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also explains in detail the legal status of the lease of the land on which the naval station stands, the statutory and treaty authorities granted to the President with regard to any potential closure of the naval station, and the second-order effects on such a closure that Cuba sanctions laws might have. A short list of additional readings ends the report.
At the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines transitioned to administration by the United States. Of these four territories, only Cuba quickly became an independent republic. As a condition of relinquishing administration, though, the Cuban government agreed to lease three parcels of land to the United States for use as naval or coaling stations. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the sole installation established under that agreement. The two subsequent lease agreements, one signed in 1903 and a second in 1934, acknowledged Cuban sovereignty, but granted to the United States "complete jurisdiction and control over" the property so long as it remained occupied.
Relations between the naval station and its surrounding communities remained stable until the Cuban revolution of the late 1950s. As Cuban-American relations deteriorated in the aftermath of the 1959 Cuban revolution, the naval station found itself more and more isolated. When the Cuban government began shutting off the supply of potable water during the early 1960s, the United States took measures to render the naval station self-sufficient in both water supply and electrical power generation. It has remained so ever since.
The prominence of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay rose briefly during the Haitian refugee and Cuban migrant crises of the early 1990s. At one point in late 1994, the migrant population of the naval station approached 45,000. However, by the end of January 1996, the last of these temporary residents had departed.
The naval station's return to prominence arose due to the establishment of facilities to house a number of wartime detainees captured during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This practice began in early 2002 with the refurbishment of some of the property formerly used to house refugees. It later expanded to more substantial housing that is operated by Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, a tenant for which the naval station provides logistical support. Additional temporary facilities were eventually constructed on a disused naval station airfield for use by the military commissions created to try detainees.
The 1903 lease agreements between the governments of Cuba and the United States are controlled by the language of a 1934 treaty stipulating that the lease can only be modified or abrogated pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Cuba. The territorial limits of the naval station remain as they were in 1934, unless the United States abandons Guantanamo Bay or the two governments reach an agreement to modify its boundaries. While there appears to be no consensus on whether the President can modify the agreement alone, Congress is empowered to alter by statute the effect of the underlying 1934 treaty. There is no current law that would expressly prohibit the negotiation of lease modifications with the existing government of Cuba, but the House of Representatives passed a prohibition on carrying out such a modification without congressional approval as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2017 (H.R. 4909/S. 2943).
As for "abandoning" the naval station, it appears that there are no statutory prohibitions against closing an overseas military installation. Nevertheless, Congress has imposed practical impediments to closing the naval station by, for example, restricting the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries and banning their transfer to the United States. The existence of various Cuba sanctions laws may also impede a closure of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay by making it difficult to give or sell any property to the government of Cuba.
For information on the Guantanamo detention facility, see CRS Report R41920, Detainee Provisions in the National Defense Authorization Bills, by [author name scrubbed] and [author name scrubbed]; and CRS Report R40139, Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues, by [author name scrubbed] et al. For background on U.S. policy toward Cuba, see CRS Report R43926, Cuba: Issues for the 114th Congress, by [author name scrubbed].