By Ted Hesson and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON -U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem plans to visit a migrant detention site in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the Trump administration ramps up enforcement efforts, a department spokesperson said on Thursday.
The first group of about 10 migrants was sent to Guantanamo Bay on a military aircraft on Tuesday. A second flight departed the U.S. on Thursday, a U.S. official said.
The administration of President Donald Trump said the initial flight carried alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua but did not provide details about charges or convictions.
Critics say the deportations to Guantanamo are illegal and that detainees may not have adequate access to attorneys.
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising a broad immigration crackdown and record deportations. He has taken steps to make it easier for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to arrest non-criminals and tapped the military to provide resources for deportations and border security.
ABC News reported late on Thursday that the Federal Bureau of Prisons will hold detainees arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least two federal facilities – in Los Angeles and Miami – have begun to hold ICE detainees, the report said, citing sources.
Jim Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary, made a rare visit to the Guantanamo Bay naval base in 2017, the first at the time by a defense secretary since 2002. No other defense secretary has visited the base since then.
The Trump administration has sought to expand immigration detention beyond the 41,500-bed capacity funded by the U.S. Congress, including plans to house up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay and to ease federal detention standards to encourage more sheriffs to provide jail space.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told reporters at the White House on Thursday that some migrants arrested in recent ICE operations have been released but did not provide figures.
“I’ve been told that some were released because of some health concerns that we could not handle within ICE detention,” Homan said, according to a pool report. “I have a meeting with ICE leadership today to find out exactly who was released and why.”
The U.S. detention facility known as Guantanamo Bay on the coast of Cuba was set up in 2002 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush to detain foreign militant suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Human rights experts, including at the United Nations, have previously condemned torture at Guantanamo Bay during the so-called U.S. “war on terror.” The facility for migrants is separate from the detention center on the base.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson, Idrees Ali and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
