Camp Iguana ( Guantanamo Bay ) Camp Iguana is a small compound in the detention camp complex on the US Naval base at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba . Camp Iguana originally held three child detainees , who camp spokesmen then claimed were the only detainees under age 16 ( the age at which DOD defined minors ) . It was closed in the winter of 2004 when the three were sent home . When the Department of Defense was forced in 2005 by US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff ' s court order to release the identities of all the detainees , DOD acknowledged it had detained up to twenty minors ( under the age of 18 , the international coming of age ) in the adult portion of the prison . In 2005 Camp Iguana was re - opened to hold some of the 38 detainees classified in Combatant Status Review Tribunals as " no longer enemy combatant s . " These included several Uyghurs , who could not return to China because of the high risk persecution there . They were subject to delays in resettlement as diplomatic efforts tried to place them in countries other than their country of origin or the United States . Used for juvenile detainees . Beginning in 2002 , the US used Camp Iguana for juvenile detainees . Elaine Chao the U . S . Secretary of Labor has spoken about the responsibility to give child soldiers special treatment , to provide help for them to re - integrate into society . If the Americans had applied the Geneva Conventions at the battlefield , its forces would have reviewed detainees more closely in Afghanistan and other areas of capture . The Geneva Conventions entitle persons collected during warfare to a " prompt , open tribunal " for a fair determination of their status — whether they should be considered civilians , POWs or enemy combatants . Critics have said a more thorough review at the beginning would have meant the juveniles would never have been transported from Afghanistan . The executive branch of the United States government claimed at the time that enemy combatants were beyond the jurisdiction of the US courts . The United States Supreme Court overruled executive efforts to keep the enemy combatants outside the US judicial system ; in decisions in 2004 , it ruled that both American and foreign detainees had the right to challenge their detentions before an impartial tribunal . The executive branch established Combatant Status Review Tribunal s in 2004 to evaluate whether detainees were enemy combatants . In a BBC interview in 2004 , Naqibullah , a young Afghan teenager , described being treated humanely , and receiving an education , while in Camp Iguana . A 2 February 2004 memo summarized a meeting between General Geoffrey Miller , commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp , and his staff and Vincent Cassard of the ICRC . Geoffrey Miller said : In the spring of 2005 , the media reported that other detainees were held at Guantanamo who had first been detained at ages lower than 18 ( the international definition of a minor . ) A " New York Times " article published on 13 June 2005 , said there were at least six other teenagers , who were kept within the general population and treated as adults . Military officials explained this as saying they had to estimate detainee ages . : " They don ' t come with birth certificates , " said Col . Brad K . Blackner , the chief public affairs officer at the detention camp . Col . David McWilliams , the chief spokesman for the United States Southern Command in Miami , which runs the prison operation , said that the authorities were fairly confident of their estimates . " We used bone scans in some cases and age was determined by medical evidence as best we could , " he said . " Omar Khadr was 15 when captured . United States intelligence officers were reported to know his age and identity because of the prominence of his father , Ahmed Khadr and because his older brother Abdurahman cooperated with the CIA as an undercover agent at Guantanamo . A " Washington Post " article from 29 October 2002 reported : Abdul Salam Mureef Ghaithan Al Shehri , a Saudi citizen who was fifteen when he was captured , celebrated his eighteenth birthday in Guantanamo Bay , in late April 2005 . In an interview broadcast on the BBC on 9 September 2005 , Clive Stafford Smith reported that the continued incarceration of juveniles between 16 and 18 at Guantanamo Bay was a catalyst for the protests of the hunger strike s , which took place during the summer of 2005 . The United Nations determined that to forcefeed the strikers amounts to torture . At the time , Smith said that as many as twenty teenagers remained imprisoned at Guantanamo , some of whom were being kept in long - term , solitary confinement . The legal director of Reprieve and a prominent British human rights lawyer , he represents 37 Guantanamo detainees . In May 2009 Afghan human rights workers challenged the American bone - scan estimate for the age of Mohammed Jawad , a former detainee . They assert he had been as young as 12 or 13 when he was captured in December 2002 . Former detainees waiting for resettlement . On 25 August 2005 , the Associated Press reported that Camp Iguana was being reopened to hold detainees whose CSRTs had concluded that they were not " enemy combatants " . Others who were declassified as enemy combatants , including Sami Al Laithi , continued to be detained in Camp Delta . On 5 May 2006 five Uighurs , who had been held in Camp Iguana , were transported to a refugee center in Albania prior to a review of their writs of " habeas corpus . " This was scheduled for the Monday after the weekend . These five were among a total of 15 Uighurs who were reported to have been determined not to have been " enemy combatants . " They were kept at Guantanamo as the US tried to place them ; they feared return to China because of persecution . In a telephone interview , Abu Baker Qassim , one of the Uighurs sent to Albania , said Camp Iguana had held nine innocent men before their departure . The other four innocent men had been a Russian , an Algerian , a Libyan , and a man who had been born in Saudi Arabia to Uighur exiles . On 30 September 2008 , Assistant Attorney General Gregory Katsas filed a " notice of status " on the seventeen remaining Uyghur detainees . He said they were no longer to be treated as enemy combatants . Their attorneys pointed out that several of their clients remained in solitary confinement , which is considered severe punishment . The DOD said that all the Uyghurs would be transferred to Camp Iguana for better conditions .