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Lower than every week after deporting Venezuelans detained at Guantanamo Bay, the Trump administration has once more flown about two dozen migrants to the U.S. naval base in Cuba. This time, nonetheless, the migrants are from nations the world over, together with from locations which might be keen to take them again, which has raised extra questions on whom the federal government is selecting to ship there and why.
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune interviewed Angela Sequera, the mom of one of many first migrants despatched to Guantanamo. She described her worry and desperation upon studying that her son, Yoiker Sequera, had been transferred to the ability, which she knew solely as a spot the place terrorists have been held and tortured after the 9/11 assaults.
On Feb. 9, Sequera was ready for her day by day cellphone name from Yoiker, who had been in an El Paso immigration detention facility since he was charged with coming into the U.S. illegally late final 12 months. When the cellphone lastly rang, it wasn’t her son however one other detainee who informed her that Yoiker had been taken to Guantanamo.
“It hit me like a bucket of chilly water. I requested the person: ‘Why? Why? Why?’” Sequera recalled. She stated the detainee informed her that the federal authorities was making an attempt to hyperlink Yoiker to Tren de Aragua, a infamous Venezuelan gang recognized for migrant smuggling and different crimes in Latin America.
She panicked. She could not perceive why this was taking place. She and a few of the relations of 178 Venezuelans who have been among the many first migrants transferred to Guantanamo by the U.S. authorities scrambled to attempt to set up contact with their family members, scoured the web and exchanged messages on an impromptu WhatsApp group.
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune obtained data about Yoiker and two different Venezuelans taken to Guantanamo. A search of U.S. federal court docket data discovered that Yoiker and one other man had no crimes apart from unlawful entry, whereas a 3rd had been convicted for assaulting a federal officer throughout a riot whereas in detention. “My son is just not a prison. He has no file. He has nothing to do with gangs. He doesn’t belong to any Tren de Aragua,” stated Sequera, who shared documentation from Venezuelan authorities that said he didn’t have a prison historical past.
On Feb. 21, after 13 days with out listening to from her son, Sequera acquired a name from Yoiker. He had been launched and was again in Venezuela, however he refused to debate the time he spent detained on the naval base. “I feel he does it to not make me fear,” stated Sequera, who’s among the many plaintiffs named in a lawsuit filed by immigrants’ rights advocates searching for authorized entry to the migrants in Guantanamo.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety stated this week that almost half of the Venezuelans initially detained at Guantanamo have been members of the Tren de Aragua gang and that many had severe prison data. DHS didn’t present proof to help that assertion.
DHS additionally stated in court docket filings this month that Guantanamo will proceed to “briefly home” migrants earlier than they’re “eliminated to their house nation or a secure third nation.”
Migrants on current flights to Guantanamo have come from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Egypt, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Guinea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Senegal, in line with authorities information shared with ProPublica and the Tribune. DHS didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark about the newest transfers.
“We proceed to know little or no concerning the circumstances there, who the federal government is sending there and why that is taking place,” stated Zoe Bowman, an legal professional with the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Middle, which can be a plaintiff within the lawsuit.
Watch the video: Mother Speaks Out Against Trump’s Detention of Her Son at Guantanamo
Mauricio Rodríguez Pons contributed to the manufacturing.
