The primary flight carrying migrants to Guantanamo Bay arrived Tuesday night, a part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
The C-17 aircraft took off from El Paso, Texas, with a small variety of migrants onboard headed for the high-security jail facility that has been used to carry al Qaeda detainees, in response to a U.S. official.
The deportation flight landed at at 7:20 p.m. ET, in response to U.S. Transportation Command.
The ten individuals on the flight have been suspected members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, in response to the Division of Homeland Safety.
The migrants, nevertheless, won’t be co-located with present detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have the first guard of them.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29 directing the secretaries of the Division of Protection and the Division of Homeland Safety to “develop the Migrant Operations Middle at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capability” to deal with migrants with out authorized standing residing in the US.
“There’s a whole lot of house to accommodate lots of people,” Trump said within the Oval Workplace on Tuesday. “So we will use it.
“The migrants are tough, however now we have some dangerous ones, too,” he added. “I would wish to get them out. It will be all topic to the legal guidelines of our land, and we’re taking a look at that to see if we are able to.”
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the flights carrying migrants to Guantanamo Bay have been underway Tuesday morning, saying on Fox Information, “Trump, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem are already delivering on this promise to make the most of that capability at Gitmo for unlawful criminals who’ve damaged our nation’s immigration legal guidelines after which have additional dedicated heinous crimes towards lawful Americans right here at dwelling.”
Migrants are loaded onto a navy airplane for a flight to Guantanamo Bay, El Paso, Tx., Feb. 4, 2025.
DHS
Whereas Trump has stated the US will work to organize the bottom to carry 30,000 migrants awaiting processing to return to their dwelling nations, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth stated Monday that Guantanamo Bay’s high-security prison facility could house “the worst of the worst” criminals being deported.
“The place are you going to place Tren de Aragua earlier than you ship all of them the way in which again?” Hegseth requested. “How a few maximum-security jail at Guantanamo Bay, the place now we have the house?”
He referred to as the bottom “the proper place to supply for migrants who’re touring out of our nation,” together with for “hardened criminals.”
“President @realdonaldtrump has been very clear: Guantanamo Bay will maintain the worst of the worst. That begins in the present day,” Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem posted on Tuesday. It’s unclear what costs the migrants on the aircraft face.
Migrants are loaded onto a navy airplane for a flight to Guantanamo Bay, El Paso, Tx., Feb. 4, 2025.
DHS
As of Monday, there have been about 300 service members supporting the immigrant holding operations at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, in response to U.S. Southern Command. U.S. officers instructed ABC Information that as many as 200 extra Marines are anticipated to reach in waves.
The Protection Division posted that the troops are at Guantanamo Bay “to organize to develop the Migrant Operations Middle” to deal with as much as the 30,000 migrants quickly, separate from the maximum-security jail.
“As we determine legal illegals in our nation, the navy is leaning ahead to assist with transferring them out to their dwelling nations or another person within the interim,” Hegseth stated on Jan. 31. “Now if … they can not go someplace immediately, they’ll go to Guantanamo Bay.”
Migrants are loaded onto a navy airplane for a flight to Guantanamo Bay, El Paso, Tx., Feb. 4, 2025.
DHS
Karen Greenberg, director of the Middle on Nationwide Safety at Fordham College Faculty of Legislation, told ABC News’ Phil Lipof on Jan. 29 {that a} “large problem” of holding migrants at Guantanamo Bay is the massive quantity Trump has recommended.
“I do not know that they’ve the capability for that,” stated Greenberg, who famous that “within the outdated days and the ’90s, I feel they held 21,000 on the most.”
Migrants are loaded onto a navy airplane for a flight to Guantanamo Bay, El Paso, Tx., Feb. 4, 2025.
DHS
She added that the bottom has repeatedly held refugees and migrants, together with within the Biden administration, although in a lot smaller numbers.
Nonetheless, Greenberg famous that the experiences from those that have frolicked at Guantanamo Bay are “not good.”
“There was a report launched in September by the International Refugee Assistance Project, which type of detailed the circumstances that migrants are held in at the moment at Guantanamo, which included unsanitary circumstances, mistreatment, to not point out this type of fuzzy authorized standing,” she stated.
ABC Information’ Luke Barr contributed to this report.
