While the Trump administration claims that ‘dangerous criminals’ and suspected gang members are being transferred to the base at Guantanamo Bay, ‘low-risk,’ non-violent migrant detainees with little or no serious criminal record are also being sent to the US-occupied camp, according to two US officials and internal government documents.
Late last month, when President Trump ordered officials to convert the naval base facilities at Guantanamo into a large-scale immigration detention center, he said it would house the ‘worst’ immigrants and ‘provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens,’ CBS reported.
Officials have since said that military flights to Guantanamo have carried immigrants who are in the United States illegally and have committed violent crimes such as murder and rape, as well as members of the notorious gang Tren de Aragua, which has emerged from Venezuelan prisons.
Internal documents and interviews with US officials show that the administration has sent migrant criminals and alleged gang members to Guantanamo, where it also holds more than ten terrorism suspects in a separate section.
But according to government documents obtained by CBS, in addition to sending people with criminal records or suspected or known gang affiliations classified as ‘high-risk’ detainees, US authorities have also transferred migrants considered ‘low-risk’ to Guantanamo.
According to the documents, more low-risk migrants were expected to be transferred on Wednesday in addition to high-risk detainees.
Federal immigration officials define low-risk detainees as immigrants facing deportation for being in the United States illegally but who have not been arrested or convicted of violent crimes or other serious offenses.
US officials said they could also include immigrants with no criminal record but who have been ordered deported for civil immigration violations, such as entering the country without proper documentation.
High-risk migrants are held in cells in Guantanamo’s maximum-security prison, while low-risk detainees are housed in a barracks-like facility known as the Immigration Operations Center, which includes toilets, according to the documents and a US official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The State Department traditionally uses the Immigration Operations Center to house asylum seekers intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard while they await resettlement in third countries.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the CBS report on Wednesday, saying that in addition to holding ‘violent gang members’ and other ‘high threat illegal aliens,’ Guantanamo also holds other illegal aliens with final deportation orders.
There has been some progress in operationalizing Trump’s orders to build the facilities needed to detain up to 30,000 unauthorized migrants at the base in Guantanamo on Cuban soil.
Over the past week, US troops at the base have erected tents to house migrant detainees beyond the prison and the Immigration Operations Center, both of which have limited capacity.
A US official said late on Tuesday that about 100 unauthorized migrants were being held at Guantanamo, all of them adults from Venezuela.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said recently that the detainees would be held there until they were deported, but it was unclear when that might happen.
