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The United States administration is planning to send at least 9,000 undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay starting as soon as Wednesday, according to documents obtained by Politico on Tuesday. According to the report, the people transferred to Guantanamo are expected to remain there temporarily before being deported.

With his hands and feet handcuffed, tied leg to leg with other detainees, José Daniel Simancas Rodríguez was put on a plane. He says he was told he would go to Miami.Hours later, when they landed, Simancas and his fellow passengers were transferred to a bus with the windows covered by bags. By then he already suspected where he had arrived: Guantanamo. What he did not imagine was that this was just the beginning of a nightmare that would last 15 days.Simancas was one of 177 Venezuelans deported by the United States who had been transferred to the US naval...

A second deportation flight carrying 13 Venezuelan gang members wanted for a range of violent crimes departed El Paso, Texas, for Guantanamo Bay in Cuba Thursday. The flight roster includes a Tren de Aragua gang member who committed a homicide and another who admitted he is wanted in Venezuela for escaping from jail, aggravated robbery with a weapon and intent to commit homicide, according to a Homeland Security official. Other offenses the migrants are accused of include possession of dangerous drugs, robbery, assault, fraud and entering the US illegally, the official said. The flight comes 48 hours after the first...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first U.S. military flight to deport migrants from the United States to Guantanamo Bay has departed and is expected to land Tuesday evening, two U.S. officials said. It is the first step in an expected surge in the number of migrants sent to the Navy base in Cuba, which for decades was primarily used to detain foreigners associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. President Donald Trump has eyed the facility as a holding center and said it has the capacity to hold as many as 30,000. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was assigned to Guantanamo...

The first planeloads of illegal immigrants detained in President Trump’s crackdown have departed for Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where a small migrant detention center could be expanded to house tens of thousands. Two planes carrying migrants have departed this week, with one departing from Fort Bliss, Texas, with about a dozen people onboard, the Wall Street Journal reported. Guantanamo Bay has traditionally been used to house terrorists captured by the US, but has always had room — about 120 beds — to house migrants caught trying to sneak into the US through the Gulf of Mexico.

The Pentagon expects to send two flights of migrants to Guantanamo Bay this weekend, the first step in President Donald Trump’s plans to use the the base for detaining people swept up in his crackdown on illegal immigration. The final details are still getting worked out, according to two defense officials, but the planes likely will join another one headed to Peru as the military seeks to enact Trump’s orders to deport thousands of people in the country illegally. The military has flown eight flights so far — including four to Guatemala, three to Honduras and one to Ecuador —...

Washington (PTI) -- US President Donald Trump has signed a presidential memorandum to set up a 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay to detain “high-priority criminal aliens.” The Guantanamo Bay facility, which has so far been used to hold terrorists, will now also house illegal immigrants with criminal records. The signing took place on Wednesday, with Trump directing the Departments of Defence and Homeland Security to prepare the facility. According to the memorandum, he ordered the expansion of the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to accommodate “high-priority criminal aliens” and address related enforcement needs. “Most people don’t...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the Laken Riley Act into law, giving federal authorities broader power to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have been accused of crimes. He also announced at the ceremony that his administration planned to send the “worst criminal aliens” to a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bipartisan act, the first piece of legislation approved during Trump’s second term, was named for Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was slain last year by a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally. “She was a light of warmth and kindness,”...

Trump said at the White House that he was "signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000 person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay."

Former President Barack Obama didn’t listen to Pentagon officials when they told him Taliban mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa was too dangerous to release. Instead, he freed the group that came to be known as the ‘Gitmo five’ — Khairkhwa alongside four of his buddies — from the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2014 in exchange for a U.S. soldier who deserted his post. Obama all but guaranteed that Khairkhwa and the four other men would be sent to Qatar, where their movements would be restricted and where they could do no harm. As it turns out, the Taliban isn’t as trustworthy as...

The transfer is the largest yet during the Biden administration. ... In a major development, the Pentagon on Monday announced the transfer 11 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Oman, a move that now leaves only 15 detainees still at the detention facility. "The United States appreciates the willingness of the government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility," said a DOD statement. In recent weeks, the Pentagon had transferred out four other detainees from Guantanamo including a detainee who was brought to...

Exactly two months after her election loss to Donald Trump, Vice-President Kamala Harris will preside over the certification of her own defeat.As president of the Senate, on Monday she will stand at the House Speaker's rostrum to lead the counting of Electoral College votes, officially cementing her rival's triumph two weeks before he returns to the White House. The circumstances are painful and awkward for a candidate who decried her opponent as an urgent threat to American democracy, but Harris aides insist she will conduct her constitutional and legal duty with seriousness and grace. It is not the first time...

The presence of Russian submarines and spy ships near undersea cables carrying most global Internet communications has U.S. officials concerned that Russia could be planning to sever the lines in periods of conflict, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The Times said there was no evidence of cable cutting but that the concerns reflected increased wariness among U.S. and allied officials over growing Russian military activity around the world. The newspaper quoted naval commanders and intelligence officials as saying they were monitoring significantly greater Russian activity along the cables' known routes from the North Sea to Northeast Asia and...

A military judge ruled Wednesday that plea deals sparing accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other terrorists the death penalty must remain in effect. The stunning move comes three months after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revoked the shocking plea deals handed out to Mohammed and two alleged accomplices by the Office of Military Commissions in July. ... The order, issued by Air Force Col. and Judge Matthew McCall in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ... Family members of the victims of the heinous terror attack, which killed nearly 3,000, were outraged by the judge’s ruling.

As a congressman, Walz cited Guantanamo Bay facility as 'serious obstacle to peace in the Middle East' ... Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who was named Kamala Harris’s vice presidential pick on Tuesday, pushed to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and move its terrorist captives into holding facilities in the United States. His position put him to the left of other prominent Minnesota Democrats like Amy Klobuchar, but Gitmo, Walz said, is a "serious obstacle to peace in the Middle East." As a House member representing Minnesota's First Congressional District, Walz voted against a 2009 measure that would have barred...

The Department of Defense invites media to cover a pre-sentencing hearing in the case of United States v. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, scheduled for April 15-19. The defendant entered a guilty plea in June of 2022. The proceedings will be conducted at the Expeditionary Legal Complex located in Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB) Cuba and will be transmitted to a closed-circuit television site at Ft. Meade, Md. For planning purposes, media desiring to travel to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB) Cuba will depart from Joint Base Andrews, Md. on the date listed below with a round-trip flight cost of $800. Flights...

As a young military officer at the height of the war on terror, Lt. Ron DeSantis was often seen running on the beach of Guantánamo Bay and along its ridgeline, encircling Camp America. It was a chaotic time at the U.S. military detention facility in Cuba, and as an ambitious Navy lawyer, DeSantis was positioned to witness history up close. He arrived at Joint Task Force Guantanamo in the spring of 2006 as its leaders were grappling with multiple challenges and global scrutiny. Aggressive tactics were adopted to break a hunger strike. An armed clash erupted between detainees and a...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) denied authorizing force-feeding – a practice that international groups have said amounts to torture – during his time at Guantanamo Bay, according to a new interview. In an interview airing Thursday on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” DeSantis said the allegations that he authorized force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay were “absolutely” wrong, saying that he did not have the authority to do so. “I was a junior officer. I didn’t have authority to authorize anything,” he told Piers Morgan. “There may have been a commander that would have done feeding if someone was going to die, but that...

A Baltimore schoolboy-turned-terrorist was quietly freed from Guantanamo Bay on February 2 by Joe Biden and relocated to Belize at taxpayer expense. He is the first high-value detainee to be released from Guantanamo Bay and the first inmate resettled by the Biden administration.Majid Khan was the only American resident locked up in Guantanamo Bay. He ran errands for the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). He also plotted to blow up Pakistan’s then-President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in 2002. He wore a suicide vest packed with explosives and waited at a mosque for Musharraf to arrive. When he...

U.S. military prosecutors are reportedly negotiating potential plea deals with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other conspirators imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. The plea deals may allow the five dependents to escape a potential death penalty, according to CBS. Mohammed is widely credited with being the architect of the 9/11 terror attacks. The other four defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ammar al-Baluchi. Attorneys for the defendants reportedly say they would be willing to enter a guilty plea in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, as well as for getting treatment...