The first set of flights to send criminal illegal aliens to Guantanamo Bay will depart on Tuesday, CBS News reported, citing "two U.S. officials."

The territory is a small U.S. enclave in Cuba that the nation acquired as a result of the Spanish-American War. It has been the site of an infamous prison used during the war on terror to hold captured terrorists. President Donald Trump, however, has moved to reinvent the facility as a large-scale detention center for illegal aliens with criminal records.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on Monday indicated that the U.S. has already used the facility to house illegal aliens, but that Trump's plan would be to expand on existing practice.

“We've always had a presence of illegal immigrants there that have been detained. We're just building out some capacities," she said on NBC News.

"Guantanamo has long been a place for migrants," Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said. "In fact, in the '90s, tens of thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants staged there as part of a crisis. We have an even bigger crisis on our hands now."