The number of troops being sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in support of migrant detention operations there continues to swell, with approximately 1,100 service members now deployed to the Navy base as of Thursday, according to a defense official.
Meanwhile, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, announced that 177 Venezuelan migrants were transported from Guantanamo Bay to Honduras "for pickup by the Venezuelan government, which returned them to their home country," the agency said on social media Thursday. That meant all migrants previously sent to the Navy base for detention had been transferred off the installation, a move also confirmed by another defense official on Friday.
Representatives from President Donald Trump's administration said that nearly one-third of the total number of migrants who had been transferred to Guantanamo since the beginning of the month were deemed "low threat" by the Department of Homeland Security, according to a court filing submitted Thursday in a government response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of immigrant rights groups.
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Col. Jennifer Venghaus, an Army lawyer for Joint Task Force Southern Guard -- a unit created in the wake of Trump's Jan. 29 order to expand migrant detention facilities at Guantanamo to hold up to 30,000 people, said in a sworn declaration Thursday that 127 "high threat" migrants were being kept at one of the base's prison buildings known as Camp 6 prior to their transfer to Honduras.
As of Monday, out of the 178 people sent to Guantanamo Bay, 28% -- or 51 migrants sent to the base since Feb. 9 -- were considered "low threat" and were being kept in the Migrant Operations Center, a lower-security facility that has been used to house detainees since the early 1990s, according to the filing.
Thursday's court filing from the government noted that one "high-threat" migrant previously detained at Camp 6 was returned to the U.S, putting the total number of migrants previously held at the base at 177 people.
Military officials told lawmakers last Thursday that there were approximately 68 migrants detained at Guantanamo Bay, meaning the number of people transferred there from the U.S. had more than doubled in a week. The first 10 migrants arrived at the base Feb. 4 from an Army installation in Texas, the same day that JTF-SG "reached initial operating capacity," according to the filing.
Now, the base is empty of migrants following the ICE announcement that they were sent to Honduras for repatriation to Venezuela, according to one of the defense officials and media reports. The Associated Press said that the migrants arrived at Venezuela's La Guaira International Airport on Thursday.
"DoD is in support of DHS, and the extent of U.S. military support will be determined as events unfold," the other defense official said when asked what the emptying of the base would mean for the 1,100 troops currently deployed there in support of the detention mission and whether Guantanamo was expecting more migrants. "We can't specify a definitive timetable on their length [of] deployment at this point."
The base is best known for holding 9/11 terrorism suspects for decades, and the transfer of migrants there has spurred concerns from immigrant rights groups about access to legal aid.
Trump administration officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit from the immigration rights groups, have consistently said that the Navy base would be used to detain "the worst of the worst" migrants detained on U.S. soil.
The president has also said that the facility would be used to "detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people," after announcing last month that Guantanamo would be expanded to hold tens of thousands of migrants.
The court filing was first reported by WUSA9 on Thursday.
Venghaus said that JTF-SG, which includes troops deployed to the base, "provides supplies, food, care, shelter, medical support and security when it exceeds the capability of DHS" and that people attached to the task force include "staff, medical, security, engineer, and logistics personnel."
She put the total number of personnel in the unit at approximately 985, though the defense official noted that troop deployments to the base will continue to fluctuate.
Venghaus added that Army military police are serving as guards inside Camp 6 under the oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ICE-ERO. The New York Times reported last week that some migrants at Guantanamo Bay were being guarded by service members.
On Wednesday, NPR reported that military medical personnel were preparing to deploy to the base to take care of detainees there, prompting Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., to write a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stating that it was "unacceptable that military resources be diverted to fulfill this need."
"The primary mission of our military medical personnel is to support the health and well-being of our service members and their families," Garamendi wrote. "Diverting these medical professionals away from their normal duties and regular patients to Guantanamo Bay could undermine our ability to respond to medical emergencies and maintain the readiness of our forces."
Military.com reported last week that roughly 900 troops from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and National Guard were deployed to the base in support of migrant detention operations, according to a defense official, where they have been setting up tents and cots and building out other facilities on the base.
One defense official said Thursday that they required anonymity to speak to the press "because that's what the leadership at [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] have directed us to do."
Military.com previously reported that the units deployed to Guantanamo included 334 Marines from the 6th Marine Regiment out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; 216 members of the National Guard; 160 Navy personnel; 116 service members assigned to Joint Task Force-Southern Guard; and 30 personnel from U.S. Southern Command.
The defense official said that the element is "no longer showing an exact breakdown of who, since they're all falling under JTF-Southern Guard," and it was unclear how many civilians make up the 1,100 personnel deployed to the base as of Thursday.
Immigrant rights and legal groups, spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the Trump administration last week, accusing the administration of "holding [migrants] incommunicado, without access to attorneys, or the outside world," according to the court filing.
The groups sought a temporary restraining order seeking to allow migrants to have in-person legal aid with their attorneys.
In response, the Trump administration said that the emergency request to provide legal aid to migrants at Guantanamo Bay "should be denied," adding that, in part, the petitioners lack standing and the lawsuit "seeks extraordinary relief that far exceeds the court's authority because Congress expressly barred federal courts from interfering with the execution of removal orders."
The administration said that all of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are subject to final orders for repatriation to Venezuela, they have not been granted protection from removal, and are at Guantanamo Bay for "staging," according to the court filing.
A federal Washington, D.C., court ordered the administration to give migrants phone access to legal aid, which the government said it had complied with by offering some migrants one 60-minute phone call with their attorneys on Monday. The administration rebuffed the push to allow migrants in-person legal counsel.
However, the administration added that, while the military and DHS "are not presently offering the opportunity for in-person visits to immigration detainees at [Naval Station Guantanamo Bay]," the government entities "will continue to evaluate whether to extend this option in light of significant logistical challenges, the availability of alternative means of counsel communication, and the anticipated short duration of immigration detainee stays."
-- Konstantin Toropin contributed to this story.
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