Trump is unfairly detaining immigrants at Guantanamo as terrorists, households say

The army planes departed from Texas in fast succession, eight flights in as many days. Each 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 avenue 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 identified for having held these suspected of plotting the 9/11 terrorist assaults. Officers have broadly touted the flights as an illustration of President Donald Trump’s dedication to one of many central guarantees of his marketing campaign, and so they’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 supplied particulars about their alleged crimes.

In latest days, nonetheless, details about the flights and the folks 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 Occasions printed a bigger listing with some, however not all, of the identical names.

For 3 of the Guantanamo detainees who had been held at an immigration detention heart in El Paso, Texas, ProPublica and the Tribune obtained information about their legal 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 instances, they’d been languishing for months as a result of Venezuela, till just lately, was largely not accepting deportees. In keeping with U.S. federal courtroom information, two of them had no crimes on their information apart 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 members of the three males stated in interviews on Tuesday that they’ve been left totally at midnight about their family members. All of them stated that their kin weren’t criminals, and two supplied information 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 legal professional 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 building employee, and the way it felt to think about him being handled like a terrorist when all he’d performed was try to return to the USA in pursuit of an honest 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 cellphone interview in Spanish from his house in Venezuela. “It’s a terrible anguish. I don’t sleep.”

In response to questions concerning 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 a press release. Some detainees are being held in Guantanamo’s maximum-security jail whereas others are within the Migrant Operations Middle that previously has been used to deal with these intercepted at sea.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, responding to the ACLU lawsuit, stated in an e-mail that there was a cellphone system that detainees might 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 instances that it says contain a risk to nationwide safety. In these instances, the authorities say, info they’re utilizing to make custody determinations is confidential. The federal government stated a few of the folks despatched to Guantanamo are tied to the Tren de Aragua legal 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 observe is dependable. Legal professionals have expressed concern that the federal government typically 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. Information obtained by ProPublica and the Tribune reveals that from Jan. 20 by the primary days of February, there have been a minimum of 14,000 immigration arrests. Round 44% of them have been of individuals with legal convictions, and of these, near half have been convicted of misdemeanors. Nonetheless, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has stated that he’s not glad with the tempo of enforcement.

Authorities information obtained by the information organizations reveals that the Trump administration has averaged about 500 deportations per day, effectively 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 arrange 30,000 beds at Guantanamo and later stated the positioning was for “criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”

Family members of three of these presently detained in Guantanamo stated the immigrants all had tattoos. And certainly one of them, Simancas, was from Aragua, the state the place Tren de Aragua was born. The detainees’ kin 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 presently residing in Ecuador, stated her brother left Venezuela years in the past, first residing for a time in Ecuador after which in Costa Rica. He determined to attempt his luck in the USA final yr, crossing with a gaggle that included his spouse and cousin, who have been quickly launched into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims, they each stated in interviews. All three girls stated Simancas was pleased with his work on building 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 discovered of his son’s potential whereabouts after recognizing his face in a TikTok video with a few of the photographs launched by the U.S. authorities of males in grey sweats and shackles being led into army planes in El Paso.

Duran had left Venezuela hoping to in the future open his personal barbershop in Chicago, the place he had kin. 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 heart in El Paso in August, a few month after his arrival. He’d referred to as his father on Feb. 6, asking him to collect documentation that might show he had no legal report in Venezuela as a result of officers have been making an attempt 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 day by day on the cellphone whereas he was detained in El Paso, however then she abruptly stopped listening to from him. On Sunday she received a name from a detainee contained in the El Paso heart telling her that her son Yoiker had been transferred, however she wasn’t in a position to converse to him; when she seemed 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 advised her in Spanish. “It’s unfair that I’m still detained.” He’d been held contained in the detention heart 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 residing wherever he went, in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia. He continued to chop hair alongside the migrant route, as he was making an attempt final yr to make his option to his household in California, and contained in the detention heart.

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