U.S. Is Holding Migrants in Cells That Once Held Al Qaeda Suspects

The Trump administration is holding 10 migrants with suspected gang affiliations in the same prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that has housed men accused of being members of Al Qaeda, U.S. defense officials said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon made the disclosure as U.S. forces are preparing a tent city for migrants, in compliance with an order from President Trump, on a separate portion of the base. But the Defense Department said the first group of 10 deportees, who were brought to the base on Tuesday, were too dangerous for the migrant site.

Instead they were put in a vacant section of the military prison that houses terrorism suspects and convicts, far from the area where other deportees will be held by the Department of Homeland Security.

On Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the men were members of a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua, which the U.S. government last year labeled a “transnational criminal organization” for human trafficking and other criminal acts. The gang traces its beginnings to a prison in Venezuela.

The U.S. government has long held migrants at Guantánamo Bay, primarily Cubans and Haitians who have been picked up at sea. But the wartime prisoners have always been kept away from the migrants. Migrants are in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. Suspected Al Qaeda members are in the custody of the Defense Department.

The decision to fly migrants from within the United States to the base comes as Mr. Trump ramps up deportations and immigration enforcement across the country. Last week, he ordered his administration to expand a small, 120-bed center on the base to hold up to 30,000 deportees.

On Tuesday evening, U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted a video on social media showing the men being loaded onto the Air Force C-17 plane in El Paso, Texas.

“Flights to Guantánamo Bay have begun,” the post said. “The worst of the worst have no place in our homeland.”

Immigration officials hold around 40,000 detainees in private prisons and local county lockups across the United States. But Mr. Trump suggested last week that the use of Guantánamo could double detention capacity.

It is unclear how long the migrants will be held at the facility and where they will be taken next, but U.S. officials said on Wednesday that they would be sent to their home country or to another “appropriate destination.”

“These 10 high-threat individuals are currently being housed in vacant detention facilities,” the Defense Department said in a statement on Wednesday. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking this measure to ensure the safe and secure detention of these individuals until they can be transported to their country of origin or other appropriate destination.”

The Venezuelans are being held in a 200-cell medium-security prison building, called Camp 6, that has communal dining and recreation areas. The Pentagon said those 10 men were in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It is in a sprawling detention zone on the populated side of the base, far from the site where U.S. forces are building the migration tent camps. The two sides are divided by Guantánamo Bay.

The prison building where the Venezuelans were held is next to a smaller, 75-cell maximum security prison, called Camp 5. As of Wednesday, that was where the Pentagon was holding all 15 wartime detainees, including the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks and other long-held detainees in the war against terrorism.