The illegal immigrants were sent to Honduras where they were picked up by the Venezuelan government, ICE confirmed on Thursday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have removed 177 Venezuelan illegal immigrants from a detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, sending them back to their home country.
The Trump administration had opened a detention facility at the base to “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.” ICE confirmed reports that the illegal immigrants had been transferred from Guantanamo Bay in a Feb. 20 post on X.
“ICE Air Operations transported 177 Venezuelan illegal aliens from Guantanamo Bay to Honduras today for pickup by the Venezuelan government, which returned them to their home country,” the agency wrote.
In an effort to rapidly deport those who have entered the country illegally, the Trump administration has made agreements with Colombia, Venezuela, and El Salvador to accept repatriation flights of deportees.
Trump directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security by memo last month to create a 30,000-person detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for illegal immigrants.
“We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad … so we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo. This will double our capacity immediately,” Trump said during a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act on Jan. 29.
The same day, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters that the White House is working on utilizing the resources currently available at Guantanamo Bay.
The costs associated with operating these detention centers could be addressed through the reconciliation process in the House of Representatives, she said.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said ICE would run the detention center.
“There’s already a migrant center there. It’s been there for decades. So we’re just going to expand upon the existing migrant center,” Homan said, speaking alongside Noem.
President George W. Bush first used the base as a military prison in 2002 to detain foreign terrorist suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
After President Barack Obama spent years pledging to shut the base down as a detention facility, Trump signed an executive order in 2018 keeping Guantánamo Bay open as a military prison. The Biden administration had sought to wind down its operations.
ICE began flying illegal immigrants to Guantánamo Bay days after Trump signed the memo. Within a week of the directive, the Pentagon said it flew 10 deportees described as “high-threat individuals” while Homeland Security and Defense Department officials continued constructing the 30,000-person facility.
On Feb. 9, a federal court granted a request to temporarily block the possible transfer of three Venezuelan men from a New Mexico detention center to the naval base. The men had filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining order on the potential transfer.
Three days later, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Trump administration, claiming that detained illegal immigrants at Guantanamo Bay are being denied their rights to legal counsel and legal counsel of their choice, their Fifth Amendment right to due process, their First Amendment right to communicate with the outside world, and their right to habeas corpus.
T.J. Muscaro and Aldgra Fredly contributed to this report.