With a key hearing before a federal judge looming that could stop or slow the Trump administration’s transfer of more migrants to Guantánamo Bay, migrants the administration has already sent to Cuba have now been quietly returned to the United States, according to The Washington Post.
Forty men were reportedly the last group of immigrants being held at the Guántanamo Bay naval station, the paper said Wednesday. The transfer reportedly occurred over the last two days, when the men were sent back to the U.S. and detained at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facilities in Alexandria, Louisiana.
This is the second time that a group of immigrants has been sent to Guantánamo Bay and then abruptly relocated since President Donald Trump first issued his executive order in January directing an expansion of “migrant operations” at Guántanamo for “high-priority criminal aliens.”
The first time was in February, and according to The New York Times, that group consisted of 177 Venezuelans. They were not returned to the U.S. but instead were sent back to Venezuela.
According to the Post, flight trackers indicated the latest transfers were carried out on ICE Air, an agency charter airline that typically flies people flagged for deportation out of the U.S. The airport in Alexandria has reportedly seen a whirlwind of ICE activity in recent weeks. The Times reported that ICE has processed at least 100 migrants from Guantánamo Bay through the Alexandria airport since March 2.
Why the migrants were moved back to the U.S. is unclear. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment, and the White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost.
But the shuffling comes as U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C., prepares to hold a hearing Friday afternoon to weigh two civil lawsuits brought against the Trump administration.
One lawsuit was brought by the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center against the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem in February on behalf of the family members of people who were sent to Guantánamo. They alleged that detainees were being held “incommunicado” inside what was essentially a “black box” where they were unable to contact lawyers or family members.
Nicholas will also weigh matters in Espinoza Escalona v. Noem. That case involves 10 migrants who are fighting their transfer to Guantánamo Bay while they are being held in facilities around the U.S., including in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and Arizona. They do not contest that they can be removed from the United States, but they do contest being deported to a country other than their country of origin.
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The Justice Department has claimed the deportations and attempted deportations to Guantánamo are constitutional and fall in line with the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA. The Secretary of Homeland Security has the power to detain people overseas in U.S. facilities, according to prosecutors.
Although the Justice Department has said the risk of removal for the 10 migrants in the Escalona case isn’t imminent, the deadline for their removal is March 17, according to their lawyers.
Immigrant advocacy and legal groups argue the removals could come at any time and are unconstitutional because they violate Fifth Amendment rights to due process. Further, the groups argue, the facilities where migrants are being held are under the “indisputable” legal sovereignty of Cuba, not the U.S.
The Trump administration is indiscriminately and arbitrarily sending people to Guantánamo — or trying to — the advocates say. During the first wave of deportations, most of the more than 100 Venezuelans detained and labeled as the “worst of the worst” by the Trump administration did not have a criminal record beyond an immigration violation.
Reports of abuse at Guantánamo have been circulating since February, and declarations filed in court have alleged that guards have violently beaten immigrant detainees.
One detainee was allegedly “beaten up so badly that he tried to harm himself twice in two weeks,” court records show.
Detainees have alleged that they are being “taunted” by guards, “strip searched every time they use the restroom,” and when some immigrants have resisted these searches, including orders to “spread their buttocks,” they have allegedly been assaulted in response. Others have claimed they have been restrained in a “punishment chair.”
The Times reports that guards tasked with overseeing migrants at Guantánamo are both U.S. soldiers and ICE agents.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, CBS reported that Trump plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 by Friday. The centuries-old wartime law allows the president to arrest, detain and deport anyone 14 years or older who comes from a country that the United States says is invading. It was famously used during World War II to incarcerate Japanese, German and Italian immigrants and confiscate their property.
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Only Congress is empowered to declare war, but the president does not need congressional permission to invoke the Alien Enemies Act under its invasion or incursion declarations. Trump said he plans to use the law to specifically target members of the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua. The administration declared the gang a foreign terrorist organization in January.