(NewsNation) — The Trump administration is not just detaining violent gang members and high-threat migrants in Guantanamo Bay, they are also holding nonviolent migrants in the high-security facility, NewsNation has learned.
A senior Department of Homeland Security official confirmed to NewsNation that “low risk” migrants are being held at the facility and that all have a final deportation order.
“All these individuals committed a crime by entering the United States illegally,” the official said.
Federal prisons being used to detain people arrested in Trump’s immigration crackdown
High risk detainees, including criminals, are being detained in the base’s maximum-security prison, while other migrants with final removal orders are being held in the Migrant Operations Center.
The president in late January signed a memo directing the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to prepare a 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantánamo Bay, a facility in Cuba that has been used to house military prisoners, including several al Qaeda operatives linked to the 9/11 attacks.
Trump initially said it would house only the “worst” migrants and “provide additional detention space for high priority criminal aliens.”
Since announcing the move, the Pentagon has transported less than 100 detainees to Guantanamo Bay and there have been eight flights in eight days, according to the official.
While Defense Department and Homeland Security officials have worked to put the infrastructure in place to meet the demands of Trump’s order, officials have been less clear about the long-term prospects of using Guantánamo Bay as a migrant facility.
