More migrants slated for deportation from the United States arrived Tuesday at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the watchful eye of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth, visiting the U.S. naval base to get briefings on the military’s efforts to support Washington’s mass deportation efforts, posted on social media that he witnessed the U.S. cargo jet land, adding he is proud to partner with the U.S. agencies working to “remove those who have infringed on our territorial sovereignty.”
Two U.S. defense officials told VOA that the C-130 carrying nine migrants from Fort Bliss in Texas landed at Guantanamo Bay midday Tuesday, and that all nine are considered “high threat illegal aliens.”
One of the officials said they were taken from the plane to the detention center, where they were being held under guard.
A third official told VOA that an additional flight carrying more migrants was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday.
All of the officials spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to discuss the deportation operations.
The new detainees join another 17 detainees sent from Fort Bliss to Guantanamo Bay on Sunday.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is spearheading the U.S. deportation efforts, nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has so far responded to questions about the identities of the detainees, their countries of origin or the crimes with which they are charged.
Tuesday’s flight carrying detainees from the U.S. mainland to the naval base in Cuba is the second since ICE last Thursday deported 177 detainees who had been brought to Guantanamo Bay earlier this month.
Of the 177, officials had said that more than 120 were dangerous criminals, including members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization.
The other 50 or so individuals had been held at the base’s migrant operations center, designed to hold nonviolent individuals.
Hegseth on Tuesday shared photos of his visit to the base on his X social media account, where he toured both the detention center and the migrant operations center.
“These warriors are directly supporting the apprehension and deportation of dangerous illegal aliens,” he wrote in one post. “We cannot thank them or their families enough.”
The Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, also posted about the visit on her X account, sharing video of the facilities designed to house “low-priority & medium-priority illegal aliens” before they are ultimately deported.
The commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees operations at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, told lawmakers earlier this month that the base’s migrant facility had the capacity to hold about 2,500 nonviolent detainees. Efforts were underway to allow it to house as many as 30,000 nonviolent migrants slated for deportation.
U.S. deportation efforts have sparked criticism from immigration rights groups.
Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations filed a lawsuit against DHS, alleging the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility before being deported Thursday had been improperly denied access to lawyers.
DHS dismissed the lawsuit’s allegations.
