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Less than a week after being detained in Guantanamo Bay, the Trump administration once again flew around 20 immigrants to a US naval base in Cuba. However, this time, the migrants come from countries all over the world and are willing to bring them back, and raised additional questions about who the government is sending and why.
Propublica and The Texas Tribune interviewed Angela Shekkara, the mother of one of the first immigrants sent to Guantanamo. She described the horror and despair she experienced when she learned that her son, Yoiker Secrera, had been moved to the facility. She only knew as a place where terrorists were detained and tortured after the 9/11 attacks.
On February 9th, Sequera was waiting for a daily call from Yoiker. Yoiker has been in El Paso immigration detention facility since he was accused of entering the United States later last year. When the phone finally rang, it wasn’t her son, but another detainee who told her that Yoiker had been taken to Guantanamo.
“It hit me like a bucket of cold water. I asked the man: “Why? Why? Why?” Sequera recalled. She said detainees told her the federal government was trying to link Yoiker to Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang known for Latin American smuggling and other crimes.
She panicked. She couldn’t understand why this was happening. She and some of the 178 Venezuelan relatives of the first immigrants transferred to Guantanamo by the US government have tried to establish contact with their loved ones, washing the internet and exchanging messages with improvised Whatsapp groups.
Propublica and The Texas Tribune have obtained records about Yoiker and two other Venezuelans who were taken to Guantanamo. A search of US federal court records revealed that Yoiker and another man had no crime except for illegal entry, but the third person was found guilty of assaulting a federal officer while in custody. “My son is not a criminal. He has no record. He has no connection to the gang. He does not belong to Tren de Aragua,” said Sequera, who shared documents from Venezuelan authorities, who said he had no criminal history.
On February 21st, 13 days later, without any contact from his son, Sequera received a call from Yoiker. He was released and returned to Venezuela, but he refused to discuss his time in detention at the naval base. “I think he’s doing that so that he doesn’t worry me,” said Shempera, one of the plaintiffs appointed in a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights advocates seeking legal access to immigrants in Guantanamo.
A spokesman for the US Department of Homeland Security said this week that almost half of Venezuelans originally detained in Guantanamo are members of the Tren de Aragua gang, and many have serious criminal records. The DHS provided no evidence to support the claim.
The immigrants held in Guantanamo claim to be “the worst and worst.” Their families say they are unfairly targeted.
The DHS also said in a court application this month that Guantanamo will continue to “temporarily detain” immigrants before being “moved to a home country or a safe third country.”
The recent immigration of flights to Guantanamo came from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Egypt, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Guinea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Senegal, according to government data shared with Propublica and Tribune. DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comments regarding the latest forwarding.
Zoe Bowman, an attorney for the El Paso-based Las Americas Center for Immigration Advocacy, said:
Watch the video: Mother speaks against his son’s Trump detention in Guantanamo
Mauricio Rodríguez Pons contributed to production.
