Trump administration abruptly empties out Guantanamo prison of all immigrant detainees

Nearly 200 immigrants at the high-security facility were sent back to Venezuela

Alex Woodward
in New York
Friday 21 February 2025 16:37 GMT


Deported Venezuelan migrants arrive home from Guantanamo Bay

Hours after telling a judge exactly how many people are being held in a U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, including immigrants with little or no criminal records, Donald Trump’s administration emptied out the entire facility.

A plane carrying nearly 200 Venezuelan immigrants who were detained at the naval base arrived in Venezuela late Thursday, clearing out the Cuban naval base that the president turned into a detention center for immigrants ordered for deportation from the United States.

After the Department of Justice outlined exactly how many immigrants were being held at the facility, and where, while arguing that they do not have any statutory rights to attorneys or legal assistance, “there are no immigration detainees” at the facility, government lawyers wrote.

. . .

Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly defended use of the facility — which opened in 2002 to hold terrorism suspects during the War on Terror — to jail suspected Tren de Aragua gang members and “the worst of the worst and illegal criminals,” according to Noem.

More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-guantanamo-bay-prison-immigrants-b2702448.html