U.S. claims migrants held at Guantanamo are “worst of the worst.” Their households say in any other case.

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The navy planes departed from Texas in fast succession, eight flights in as many days. Every one carried greater than a dozen immigrants that the U.S. alleged are the “worst of the worst” sorts of criminals, together with members of a violent Venezuelan road gang.

Since Feb. 4, the Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrant detainees to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a facility higher recognized for having held these suspected of plotting the 9/11 terrorist assaults. Officers have broadly touted the flights as an indication of President Donald Trump’s dedication to one of many central guarantees of his marketing campaign, they usually’ve distributed pictures of a few of the immigrants at each takeoff and touchdown. However they haven’t launched the names of these they’re holding or offered particulars about their alleged crimes.

In current days, nonetheless, details about the flights and the individuals on them has emerged that calls the federal government’s narrative into query. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have recognized almost a dozen Venezuelan immigrants who’ve been transferred to Guantanamo. The New York Instances printed a bigger record with some, however not all, of the identical names.

For 3 of the Guantanamo detainees who had been held at an immigration detention middle in El Paso, ProPublica and the Tribune obtained data about their prison histories and spoke to their households. The three males are all Venezuelan. Every had been detained by immigration authorities quickly after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and was being held in custody, awaiting deportation. In some circumstances, they’d been languishing for months as a result of Venezuela, till lately, was largely not accepting deportees. In response to U.S. federal court docket data, two of them had no crimes on their data aside from unlawful entry. The third had picked up an extra cost whereas in detention, for kicking an officer whereas being restrained throughout a riot.

Family of the three males stated in interviews on Tuesday that they’ve been left fully at the hours of darkness about their family members. All of them stated that their family members weren’t criminals, and two offered data from the Venezuelan Inside Ministry and different paperwork to assist their statements. They stated the U.S. authorities has given them neither details about the detainees’ whereabouts nor the power to talk with them.

Attorneys say they’ve additionally been denied entry. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, arguing that the U.S. Structure offers the detainees rights to authorized illustration that shouldn’t be stripped away simply because they’ve been moved to Guantanamo.

“Never before have people been taken from U.S. soil and sent to Guantanamo, and then denied access to lawyers and the outside world,” stated Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer within the ACLU case. “It is difficult to think of anything so flagrantly at odds with the fundamental principles on which our country was built.”

Yesika Palma sobbed as she spoke about her brother Jose Daniel Simancas, a 30-year-old development employee, and the way it felt to consider him being handled like a terrorist when all he’d achieved was try to return to america in pursuit of a good job. Angela Sequera was distraught about not having the ability to converse to her son, Yoiker Sequera, who’d labored as a barber in Venezuela.

Michel Duran expressed the identical dismay about his son, Mayfreed Duran, who additionally labored as a barber. “To me it’s the desperation, the frustration that I know nothing of him,” he stated in a telephone interview in Spanish from his house in Venezuela. “It’s a terrible anguish. I don’t sleep.”

In response to questions in regards to the Guantanamo detentions, officers on the Division of Homeland Safety insisted, with out pointing to any proof, that some — however not all — of the immigrants they’ve transferred to Guantanamo are violent gang members and others are “high-threat” criminals. “All these individuals committed a crime by entering the United States illegally,” an company official stated in an announcement. Some detainees are being held in Guantanamo’s maximum-security jail whereas others are within the Migrant Operations Heart that previously has been used to accommodate these intercepted at sea.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, responding to the ACLU lawsuit, stated in an e-mail that there was a telephone system that detainees may use to achieve attorneys. Writing in all caps for emphasis, she added, “If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murders & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name.”

Up to now, the U.S. authorities has withheld details about circumstances that it says contain a menace to nationwide safety. In these circumstances, the authorities say, data they’re utilizing to make custody determinations is confidential. The federal government stated a few of the individuals despatched to Guantanamo are tied to the Tren de Aragua prison group, which Trump designated a terrorist group when he took workplace. Among the many issues legislation enforcement has used to determine members of the group have been sure tattoos, together with stars, roses and crowns, although there’s disagreement on whether or not the apply is dependable. Attorneys have expressed concern that the federal government generally makes use of nationwide safety considerations as a pretext to keep away from scrutiny.

The Guantanamo detentions could also be among the many highest-profile strikes the Trump administration has made as a part of its mass deportation marketing campaign, however federal brokers have additionally fanned out throughout the nation over the past a number of weeks to conduct raids in neighborhoods and workplaces. Knowledge obtained by ProPublica and the Tribune exhibits that from Jan. 20 by way of the primary days of February, there have been a minimum of 14,000 immigration arrests. Round 44% of them had been of individuals with prison convictions, and of these, near half had been convicted of misdemeanors. Nonetheless, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has stated that he’s not happy with the tempo of enforcement.

Authorities information obtained by the information organizations exhibits that the Trump administration has averaged about 500 deportations per day, properly in need of the greater than 2,100 per day through the 2024 fiscal yr underneath former President Joe Biden. Nevertheless, the distinction may very well be attributed to decrease numbers of border crossings, which have been dropping since final yr.

Trump directed the departments of Protection and Homeland Safety final month to organize 30,000 beds at Guantanamo and later stated the location was for “criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”

Family of three of these at present detained in Guantanamo stated the immigrants all had tattoos. And one in all them, Simancas, was from Aragua, the state the place Tren de Aragua was born. The detainees’ family members dispute that their family members have something to do with the group. “This doesn’t make sense. He’s a family man,” Palma stated in Spanish of her brother. “Having tattoos is not a sin.”

Palma, who’s at present dwelling in Ecuador, stated her brother left Venezuela years in the past, first dwelling for a time in Ecuador after which in Costa Rica. He determined to attempt his luck in america final yr, crossing with a bunch that included his spouse and cousin, who had been quickly launched into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims, they each stated in interviews. All three ladies stated Simancas was happy with his work on development websites and shared TikTok movies he made exhibiting the progress of a few of his tasks, set to music. Simancas referred to as his cousin on Feb. 7 saying he was being taken to Guantanamo. “It is truly distressing,” his sister stated. “I have to have faith because if I break down I can’t help him.”

Duran’s father solely realized of his son’s potential whereabouts after recognizing his face in a TikTok video with a few of the pictures launched by the U.S. authorities of males in grey sweats and shackles being led into navy planes in El Paso.

Duran had left Venezuela hoping to in the future open his personal barbershop in Chicago, the place he had family members. He described his son, who has a toddler, as a jokester and a devoted employee. Duran was detained in July 2023 on his third try crossing the border, his father stated. He remained in detention following a conviction for assaulting a federal officer throughout a riot on the immigration middle in El Paso in August, a few month after his arrival. He’d referred to as his father on Feb. 6, asking him to assemble documentation that would show he had no prison document in Venezuela as a result of officers had been attempting to tie him to Tren de Aragua. That was the final his father heard of him.

Angela Sequera was used to speaking to her son daily on the telephone whereas he was detained in El Paso, however then she abruptly stopped listening to from him. On Sunday she bought a name from a detainee contained in the El Paso middle telling her that her son Yoiker had been transferred, however she wasn’t in a position to converse to him; when she appeared him up on-line, it nonetheless confirmed him as being on the border.

She’d final heard from him a day earlier. “Estoy cansado,” I’m exhausted, she stated he informed her in Spanish. “It’s unfair that I’m still detained.” He’d been held contained in the detention middle in El Paso since September, after turning himself in to the Border Patrol in Presidio, almost 4 hours south of El Paso.

Yoiker Sequera, who was first recognized by the net publication Migrant Insider, is among the many three Venezuelans named within the lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The 25-year-old had wished to be a barber ever since he was a boy, his mom stated, similar to his uncle. That’s how he made a dwelling wherever he went, in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia. He continued to chop hair alongside the migrant route, as he was attempting final yr to make his solution to his household in California, and contained in the detention middle.

Angela Sequera stated her son had deliberate on crossing the border and attempting to hunt asylum in america. “Now they want to tie him to criminal gangs. Everything that’s happening is so unfair.”

Pratheek Rebala of ProPublica contributed reporting.