WASHINGTON — Senators who visited the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the Trump administration has flown hundreds of migrants for deportation, on Saturday called on the Trump administration to
“immediately cease this misguided mission.”
The delegation of senators — four Democrats and one Independent — said they were angered that they had to fly to Cuba on Friday for answers to questions they’ve been asking administration officials for months.
“After examining the migrant relocation activities at Guantanamo Bay, we are outraged by the scale and wastefulness of the Trump Administration’s misuse of our military,” the senators wrote. “It is obvious that Guantanamo Bay is a likely illegal and certainly illogical location to detain immigrants. Its use is seemingly designed to undermine due process and evade legal scrutiny.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said his biggest takeaways were that the administration didn’t properly prepare for the operation and that the cost to taxpayers is “enormous.”
“It was sort of a ready-fire-aim approach to this whole thing,” he said.
In an interview with The Times, Padilla said officials could not adequately explain why the migrants had to be held at Guantanamo, not some facility in the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Guantanamo is best known for holding suspected terrorists and the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, but some of the migrants held there are classified as “low-level” detainees.
“We asked repeatedly, you mean to tell me that across the 48 states in the continental U.S., there’s not space for [around 40 low-level detainees]?” Padilla said, adding that he has issues with Trump’s detention and deportation operation. “But even recognizing that, there’s a much more cost-effective way of doing it than this.”
Padilla traveled to Guantanamo with Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee; Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and Sen. Angus King of Maine, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee.
The delegation was led by Peters. King, an Independent, caucuses with the Democrats.
Padilla is a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairs its immigration subcommittee.
Upon arrival Friday, the senators were briefed by Homeland Security officials, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Navy personnel. They visited three sites: lower-level detainees, higher-level detainees and the final 15 suspected foreign terrorists held in connection to the 9/11 attacks.
Eighty-seven migrants were held at the facility as of Friday, primarily from Latin American countries: 42 in a dormitory at the Migrant Operations Center and 45 at Camp 6, on a separate part of the base. Camp 6 is a medium-security military prison.
On March 11, the Trump administration flew 40 migrants held at Guantanamo back to the U.S., a few days ahead of a court hearing in a pair of lawsuits challenging whether it is legal to hold detainees there for civil immigration purposes.
A federal District Court judge in Washington, D.C., declined to block the administration from sending more migrants to Guantanamo. Afterward, the administration began sending more migrants there.
The Trump administration has broadly portrayed migrants sent to Guantanamo as dangerous, though many had no criminal record in the U.S. Officials have claimed without evidence that some have ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
President Trump issued an executive order in January to expand the Migrant Operations Center “to full capacity.” He suggested 30,000 migrants could be housed on the base.
Among the senators’ questions Friday, Padilla said, was what authorities are doing to meet the minimum standards for detention conditions, and which set of standards they are aiming to meet, such as those pertaining to the Navy or to ICE. There was no clear response, he said.
“A lot of it seemed to be still very much a work in progress because this is unique, in terms of it being an ICE mission at a foreign location,” he said. “That in and of itself is extremely concerning because there’s no clear authority for anything they are doing at Guantanamo.”
At times, Padilla said, officials gave contradictory information. For example, he said the answer to some questions was “it depends on their conviction.” But Padilla pointed out that some detainees haven’t been convicted of anything, and are being held based on an arrest or charge.
Padilla said officials kept using the phrase “the worst of the worst” to describe the migrants.
“If they’re all the worst of the worst, they should all be in the high-risk or violent-offender category,” he said.
Padilla said officials “did everything they could” to keep the visitors from speaking with detainees. He said he managed to ask a couple of detainees held in the low-level area when they had arrived, and they told him Thursday.
Detainees have had scarce access to phone calls. Padilla said officials recognized the need and have planned for equipment to be shipped to accommodate private attorney calls. He took that as a sign of the lack of preparation.
Padilla said he fears some detainees will be deported to their country of origin and face persecution or death because of the lack of access to counsel.
Some of the officials expressed frustration with the continuously evolving operational instructions, Padilla said. Military personnel told him they had received short notice before being transferred to Guantanamo.
Those moves leave critical missions short-staffed, Padilla said.