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The military planes quickly departed from Texas in a row, with eight flights flying within a few days. Each carried more than dozens of immigrants the United States claimed to be the “worst and worst” kind of criminal, including members of violent Venezuelan street gangs.
Since February 4, the Trump administration has flew around 100 immigrant detainees to a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Authorities have promoted the flight widely as a demonstration of their commitment to one of the central promises of President Donald Trump’s campaign, and they have distributed photos of some of the migrants on both takeoff and landing. Masu. However, they have not made public the names of the people they hold or provide details about their suspicious crimes.
However, more recently, information has emerged about flights and their people calling for questioning the government’s narrative. Propublica and The Texas Tribune have identified almost 12 Venezuelan immigrants who have been moved to Guantanamo. The New York Times have published several big lists, not all of the same name.
For three Guantanamo detainees who were being held at the Immigration Detention Center in El Paso, Texas, Pro Deprica and the Tribune obtained records of their criminal history and spoke to their families. All three men are Venezuelan. Each was detained by the Immigration Bureau shortly after crossing the US-Mexico border and was detained waiting for deportation. In some cases, they suffered for months as Venezuela had not received mostly exiles until recently. Two of them committed no crimes on their records except for illegal entry, according to US federal court records. The third person received additional charges during custody to kick an officer while being held during the riot.
The relatives of the three men said in an interview Tuesday that they were left completely in the dark about the person they loved. They all said their relatives were not criminals, and the two supported their statements by providing records from the Venezuelan Ministry of Home Affairs and other documents. They said the US government has not given the ability to speak to detainees either information about where they are or to speak to them.
The lawyer says they were denied access. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday, claiming that the US Constitution gives detainees the rights to legal representatives who should not be stripped of just because they were transferred to Guantanamo.
Lee Gelernt, lead lawyer for ACLU cases, said: “It’s difficult to think of something very severely at odds with the fundamental principles our country was built.”
What we see
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Jesuska Palma talks about his brother Jose Daniel Symancus, a 30-year-old construction worker, and says that what he did was about to come to the US, he is being treated like a terrorist. We talked about how it felt to think. Pursuing a decent job. Angela Sheckella was distraught that she was unable to speak to her son, Yoiker Sheckella, who worked as a barber in Venezuela.
Michel Duran expressed the same disappointment about his son, Mayfried Duran. He also worked as a barber. “For me it’s despair and the frustration that I don’t know anything about him,” he said in a phone interview in Spanish from his home in Venezuela. “It’s a terrible anguish. I won’t sleep.”
In response to questions about Guantanamo’s detention, Department of Homeland Security officials say that, although not all, of the migrants they have transferred to Guantanamo. “Criminals. “All these individuals committed crimes by illegally entering the United States,” an agency official said in a statement. Some detainees are housed in Guantanamo’s largest security prison, while others are at immigration operations centres, which have been used to house people intercepted at sea in the past.
DHS spokesman Tricia McLaughlin said in an email in response to the ACLU case that there is a phone system that detainees can use to reach their lawyers. Written in all caps for emphasis, “If the American Civil Liberties Union cares more about very dangerous criminal aliens, including murder and vicious gang members than about American citizens, then they will have their own You should change the name.”
In the past, the US government withheld information on incidents that it says involves threats to national security. In such cases, the authorities say the information they use to make custody decisions is confidential. The government said some of those sent to Guantanamo were linked to Trump Aragua criminal organizations that designated terrorist groups when Trump took office. Among the things that law enforcement has been used to identify members of the group, there have been certain tattoos such as stars, roses and crowns, but there are differences of opinion as to whether practice is reliable. Lawyers have expressed concern that governments may use national security concerns as excuses to avoid scrutiny.
Guantanamo’s detention could be one of the best moves the Trump administration has made as part of its deportation campaign, but federal agents have been raiding in neighborhoods and workplaces over the past few weeks. I’ve been a fan out all over the country because of this. Data obtained by Propublica and The Tribune show that at least 14,000 immigrant arrests were found between January 20th and the first day of February. About 44% of them were criminal convicted, of which nearly half were found guilty of misdemeanors. Still, Trump’s border emperor Tom Homan says he’s not happy with the pace of execution.
Government data obtained by the press shows that the Trump administration averages more than 2,100 per day deportations in fiscal year 2024 under former President Joe Biden. However, this difference can be attributed to the low number of border crossings, which have been declining since last year.
Last month, Trump instructed the Department of Defense and Homeland Security to prepare 30,000 beds for Guantanamo, and later said the site was for “an illegal criminal aliens threatening the people of America.”
Mayfried Duran, left, Yoiker Shenpara, Centre and Jose Daniel Simankas are about 100 people the US government has plunged into detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay. Credit: Edited by Propublica and source image courtesy of the families of Duran, Sequera’s and Simancas
Three relatives currently in detention in Guantanamo said all immigrants have tattoos. One of them, Simancas, was from Aragua, the province of which Tren de Aragua was born. Detainee relatives dispute that their loved ones have a relationship with the group. “This makes no sense. He’s a family man,” Parma said of her brother in Spanish. “It’s not a sin to get a tattoo.”
Palma, who now lives in Ecuador, said her brother had left Venezuela years ago and had lived in Ecuador and Costa Rica for the first time. He decided to try his luck in the US last year, crossing with a group that included his wife and cousin. He was soon released to the US to pursue asylum claims, they said in an interview. All three women said Simancas was proud of his work on the construction site and shared a Tiktok video showing some advances in his project towards music. Symanca called his cousin on February 7th and said he was taken to Guantanamo. “It’s really painful,” his sister said. “I have to have faith because if I break down, I can’t help him.”
Duran’s father recognises his face in a video of Tiktok in some of the images released by the gray sweat and bondage US government led by a military plane in El Paso, and then recognises his son’s place after recognizing his face in a video of Tiktok. I learned about the possibility.
Duran had left Venezuela and hoped to one day open his own barber shop in Chicago. He described his son with a toddler as a joke and a devoted worker. Duran’s third attempt was taken over the border in July 2023, his father said. He remained in custody about a month after his arrival after being found guilty of assaulting a federal official during a riot at an immigration center in El Paso in August. He called his father on February 6th and asked him to collect documents that prove he had no criminal history in Venezuela. It was the last time his father heard of him.
Angela Secreta was used to talking to her son on the phone every day while he was in custody at El Paso, but she suddenly stopped hearing from him. On Sunday, she received a call from a detainee inside the El Paso Center and told her that her son, Yoiker, had been moved, but she was unable to tell him. When she saw him online it still showed that he was at the border.
4 years a day
She last heard from him a day ago. “Estoy Kansado,” I’m exhausted, she said he told her in Spanish. “It’s unfair that I’m still in custody,” he surrendered to Presidio’s border patrol, close to four hours south of El Paso, before detaining inside El Paso’s detention centre since September. It was being done.
Yoiker Sequera, originally identified by an online publication immigrant insider, is one of three Venezuelans named in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The 25-year-old wanted to be a barber forever because he was a boy, his mother said like his uncle. That’s how he made a living wherever he went in Colombia, Ecuador’s Venezuela. He had been cutting his hair along the immigration route as he worked his way into a detention center with his California family last year.
Angela Sheckella said she had planned on her son crossing the border and seeking asylum in the US. “Now they want to connect him to a criminal gang. Everything that’s going on is very unfair.”
We’re still reporting. Is there any information about the US immigration system you would like to share? You can reach the tip line of the signal on 917-512-0201. Be as specific, detailed and clear as possible.
Pratheek Rebala contributed the report.
