When Mayfreed Durán Arapé was woken up by a detention guard around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 8, he was confused. A guard at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in El Paso, Texas, told him to pack his stuff. "I kept asking, 'Where am I going?'" Durán Arapé recalled. He said ICE agents told him, "You are going to Venezuela." What followed surprised Durán Arapé: he, along with more than 170 Venezuelan men, were flown to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba naval base for two weeks. NPR spoke to two immigrants sent to Guantánamo who allege mistreatment by soldiers who served as officers, NPR reports. They also allege the U.S. government misled them about where they were going, and once in Guantánamo, they were not allowed to contact attorneys or family. Durán Arapé alleges he was beaten by guards. He said the mistreatment by detention officers got so bad, he tried to harm himself twice in the two weeks he was in Guantánamo. He provided NPR with photos of his wrists that show bruising, as well as injuries on his hands and knuckles. He provided a photo of two healing scars on his arm — he said that's where he tried to cut himself in a suicide attempt.
The detainees held a 5-day hunger strike. At least one time the detainees said they blocked the camera in their cells to catch the guards' attention. NPR interviewed a second detainee, Yoiner Purroy Roldán, who corroborated parts of Durán Arapé's account, including mistreatment by guards, the lack of access to showers, how none of the detainees had access to attorneys for nearly their whole detention there, despite repeated demands to be allowed access to counsel, and their protests. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told NPR, "We cannot confirm [the] veracity of this illegal alien's claims." She said Durán Arapé "entered the country illegally," had a final deportation order from a judge and had refused to leave. She told NPR that "these detainees have access to phone utilization to reach lawyers," but provided no details or evidence. Durán Arapé said there were about 10 people in the U.S. military plane that transported them to Guantánamo. In total, 178 Venezuelan men were detained there, court documents in the ACLU lawsuit show. The men, according to President Trump, were "the worst of the worst" and are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang recently designated by the Trump administration as a terrorist organization.