FEBRUARY 6, 2025 – The first flight of high-threat illegal aliens out of the United States arrived at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, yesterday.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, all 10 of those illegal aliens are part of the transnational criminal organization “Tren de Aragua.” Last month, the White House designated that group as a foreign terrorist organization.
“Their campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” the White House executive order reads.
At Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, the 10 high-threat illegal aliens who arrived today are being housed in vacant detention facilities. They are not being held alongside war on terror detainees who also reside at the installation.
Late last month, the White House announced in a memorandum for the defense secretary and the secretary of Homeland Security that facilities at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay should be used to house high-threat illegal aliens as they are moved from the United States back to their countries of origin.
“I hereby direct [DOD] and [DHS] to take all appropriate actions to expand the migrant operations center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States,” the memorandum said.
Many of the criminal illegal aliens being deported from the U.S. are traveling directly to their countries of origin via U.S. military aircraft. The use of military aircraft, or “gray tails” for that purpose, is new, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In some cases, Hegseth said, where it may take longer to reach agreements or process those individuals’ return to their nations of origin, DOD needs a place to house them before they return home.
“We want somewhere else to hold them safely in the interim — criminal illegals — Guantanamo Bay … is a perfect place,” Hegseth said last week during an interview. He also noted that he served at that installation from 2004 to 2005.
“It’s folks who may be in transit to their home country or a safe, third harbor country, and it’s taking a little time to move with that processing and with the paperwork,” he said. “Better they be held at a safe location like Guantanamo Bay.”
Hegseth said the use of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay as a waypoint for moving high-threat illegal aliens is a “plan in movement.”
“We’re ramping up for the possibility to expand mass deportations because President [Donald J.] Trump is dead serious about getting illegal criminals out of our country,” he said. “And the DOD is not only willing to [but] is proud to partner with DHS to defend the sovereignty of our southern border and advance that mission.”
By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News