Washington — The United States has started sending more migrants deemed by officials to be “high threat” criminal aliens to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, just days after emptying out the base’s migrant facilities. A U.S. defense official confirmed to VOA that a C-130 military cargo plane carrying migrants left Fort Bliss in Texas and arrived at Guantanamo Bay on Sunday. A second defense official said all 17 migrants were assessed to be “high threat” and are being held at the base’s detention facility. Both officials spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deportation operations. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is spearheading the U.S. deportation efforts, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has not yet responded to questions about the identities of the latest round of detainees sent to Guantanamo Bay, their countries of origin, or the crimes with which they are charged. The latest flight carrying migrants to Guantanamo Bay comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to visit the base Tuesday to review the military’s efforts to support the mass deportations ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump. Hegseth, according to a Pentagon statement, “will receive briefings on all mission operations at the base, including at the Migrant Operations Center and the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.” “The Secretary’s trip underscores the Department’s commitment to ensuring the security and operational effectiveness of Guantanamo Bay Naval Station,” the statement added. ICE announced last Thursday that it had transported 177 migrants being held at Guantanamo Bay to Honduras, where they were to be picked up by the Venezuelan government. U.S. officials had previously said that more than 120 of those detainees were dangerous criminals, including members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization. The approximately 50 other individuals who were deported Thursday had been held at the base’s migrant facility, designed to hold nonviolent individuals. Earlier this month, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees operations at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, told lawmakers that the base’s migrant facility had the capacity to hold about 2,500 nonviolent detainees. Efforts are under way to allow it to house as many as 30,000 nonviolent migrants slated for deportation. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with several immigration rights groups, earlier this month filed a lawsuit against DHS, alleging the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility before being deported had been improperly denied access to lawyers. DHS dismissed the lawsuit’s allegations.
