Washington — While the Trump administration has focused on the transfer of dangerous criminals and suspected gang members to Guantanamo Bay, it is simultaneously sending nonviolent, “low-risk” migrant detainees who do not possess significant criminal records, or any at all, according to two U.S. officials and internal government documents.
In late last month, President Trump directed officials to transform facilities at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a large-scale immigration detention site, stating it would accommodate the “worst” migrants and “provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens.”
Administration officials have claimed that military flights to Guantanamo have transported migrants illegally residing in the U.S., some of whom have committed violent offenses such as murder and rape, alongside alleged members of Tren de Aragua, the notorious gang originating from Venezuelan prisons.
However, internal documents and discussions with U.S. officials suggest that the administration has also relocated migrants categorized as “low-risk” to Guantanamo. These migrants are expected to be transported on Wednesday, alongside those classified as high-risk, according to the acquired government documents.
Federal immigration authorities categorize low-risk detainees as those facing deportation for being in the U.S. illegally, but who have not been arrested or convicted of violent crimes or other serious offenses. U.S. officials noted that these individuals may include migrants without any criminal records who have received deportation orders due to civil immigration violations, such as unauthorized entry.
While high-risk migrants are held in cells at Guantanamo’s maximum-security prison, low-risk detainees are placed in a barrack-style facility called the Migrant Operations Center, which includes rooms with restrooms, as per the documents and one anonymous U.S. official.
The State Department has typically utilized the Migrant Operations Center to assist asylum-seekers intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard while they await resettlement in third countries.
Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comments. This department oversees the ICE officials responsible for the migrant detainees at Guantanamo.
In the last two weeks, officials have made strides in implementing Mr. Trump’s directives to create facilities capable of detaining as many as 30,000 unauthorized migrants at the Guantanamo base, a 45-square-mile area in Cuba that the U.S. has leased for over a century.
Recently, U.S. service members at the base have been setting up tents to accommodate migrant detainees outside the prison and Migrant Operations Center, both of which have limited capacity.
U.S. Navy / AFN Guantanamo Bay Public Affairs
Officials have been meeting the administration’s goal of transporting groups of detainees to the base on a daily basis, with six consecutive military flights occurring over the past six days. However, these flights have only been able to carry up to 15 detainees each due to transportation limits upon arrival at the base.
As of late Tuesday, close to 100 unauthorized migrants were being held at Guantanamo, with all being adults from Venezuela, as reported by one of the U.S. officials. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently stated that the detainees would remain there until their deportation, although the timeline for this is uncertain.
In recent years, Venezuela’s oppressive government has generally declined American deportation flights, citing U.S. imposed economic sanctions. Under a newly brokered agreement with the Trump administration, Venezuela recently dispatched two planes to the Texas border to collect nearly 200 of its nationals held in U.S. immigration custody and return them to Venezuela. However, no similar flights for Guantanamo have been announced.
While some Republican lawmakers have praised the Trump administration for utilizing Guantanamo to detain migrant detainees, this initiative has raised concerns among pro-immigrant civil rights groups. They accuse the administration of employing the naval base as a “legal black hole” for holding migrants “incommunicado,” insisting that detainees be granted access to legal representation.
Although the transfer of low-risk migrants to Guantanamo contradicts statements from Trump officials asserting that the facility would house “the worst of the worst,” it also reinforces a recurring message from the administration: no individual illegally present in the U.S. will be exempt from detention and deportation, even if they do not have criminal histories.
Eleanor Watson
contributed to this report.
