Migrants held in Guantanamo prison cells once reserved for al-Qaeda militants

Peace activists in New York City rally against the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Photo / Getty Images

Ten alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua criminal gang are being held in the Guantanamo Bay cells that were once reserved for al-Qaeda members.

They are among the 194 suspected gang members picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in a mass sweep of illegal migrants following Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The decision to separate them from other deportees was announced by the Pentagon, which said they were too dangerous to be held with other migrants, who will be accommodated at a tent city on the other side of Guantanamo Bay.

“These 10 high-threat individuals are currently being housed in vacant detention facilities,” it said.

The US President ordered the Defence and Homeland Security departments to use Guantanamo Bay to house deportees in a memorandum signed last Wednesday.

“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. This will double our capacity immediately,” Trump said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the camp would be used to house “the worst of the worst”.

The first flight, a C17 plane from El Paso in Texas carrying “high-threat immigrants”, landed at the base on Tuesday evening.

Nearly all the 800 Muslim men once held at the base in Cuba have gone and only about 15 are still in custody – leaving accommodation spare for those migrants deemed to pose the highest risk.

The Venezuelans have been put into a 200-cell medium-security building adjacent to the high-security wing, which held the most dangerous al-Qaeda members, including those involved in plotting the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Trump has pledged to carry out the largest mass deportation in US history, with an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants earmarked for expulsion.

Priority has been given to removing “criminal aliens” – 7000 have already been picked up by Ice.

Unlike other illegal migrants earmarked for removal who are held by the Department of Homeland Security, these Venezuelans are in the custody of the US Department of Defence.

“President Donald Trump told the American people he’d arrest and deport members of the brutal Tren de Aragua gang and he’s doing just that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

“Illegal immigrant criminal gangs like Tren de Aragua will no longer be able to terrorise American communities under President Trump’s leadership.”

The Venezuelans were picked up in an early-morning raid on an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.

Trump pinpointed Aurora in the election campaign during a visit to the city.

“We will not be conquered. We will reclaim our sovereignty. And Colorado will vote for Trump as a protest and signal to the world that we are not going to take it anymore.”

Tren de Aragua, which originated in a Venezuelan prison, was designated a significant transnational criminal organisation by the Biden administration.

Before arriving in the US, the gang conducted a reign of terror across South America, wreaking havoc in Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Peru.