Dozens of Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are being guarded by troops rather than civilian immigration officers, according to people familiar with the operation, report Carol Rosenberg and Charlie Savage for The New York Times, which has obtained a list of 53 Venezuelan men the Trump administration has put in Camp 6, where Al Qaeda suspects had been held in past years. (The number of Al Qaeda suspects is down to 15 after some transfers late in the Biden administration.) According to The Times, here’s the list of 53 men being held at a prison building at the military base. Officials have described some as gang members, without offering evidence.
As of Tuesday, the other 45 migrants brought to Guantanamo were being held in a lower-security building on the other side of the base. Their guards are members of the Coast Guard, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, Ms. McLaughlin said. The names of these migrants were not on the list obtained by The Times. On Wednesday, Tricia McLaughlin, a homeland security spokeswoman, said that the agency had sent nearly 100 people to Guantánamo Bay, and that each had final deportation orders. All of them were considered to have “committed a crime by entering the United States illegally,” and the group included “violent gang members and other high-threat illegal aliens,” she said. Congressional staffers were told that the criteria for transfer to Guantánamo is currently Venezuelans in ICE custody. People in that category have been difficult to deport in recent years because of a breakdown in diplomatic relations, although Venezuela sent two flights to pick up some of its citizens who were being deported this week.