Five senators who visited the US base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba criticized the immigration mission over the weekend for wasting resources.
The Senate delegation on Friday toured immigration and customs facilities where around 85 immigrants are in custody. This included prisons associated with al-Qaeda, where longtime war detainees were detained.
The senator also spoke with officials in the defense and homeland security department. Approximately 1,000 government officials, mainly from the military, are staffed in immigration operations.
The administration has dispatched at least half of Venezuelans, and at least half of Venezuelans, since February, as part of President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. Authorities have returned about half of them to facilities in the US without explaining why many people need to house them in Guantanamo for their short stay.
As of Monday, there were fewer than 90 immigrant detainees at the base after US forces delivered 17 Salvadoran and Venezuelans from Guantanamo to a prison in El Salvadoran.
Sen. Jack Reid of Rhode Island, who was part of the delegation, took responsibility for the administration on Sunday to “device the troops from their main mission.”
Reed, a ranking Democrat with the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview that the operation was estimated to cost $40 million in the first month.
“All of that is very expensive and unnecessary,” he said. Instead, the administration needs to “try to strengthen US ice facilities.”
The other person on the trip was Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Michigan's Gary Peters is a top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat. Angus King is independent from the main.
The Pentagon advised Congress that as of March 12, the immigration business in Guantanamo had cost $39.3 million, a council aide told Congressional aide that he was anonymous because communication between the Pentagon and Congress is believed to be sensitive. That estimate covered a six-week period in which the Trump administration moved 1,290 immigrants there.
Friday's Senate trip was a modest event compared to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses and Secretary of Christa Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, each of whom brought news cameramen. But just as during the visit, when the administration flew with a small number of immigrants, the senator was there: 13 Nicaragians from an ice facility in Louisiana. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, described them as “gang members.”
On Saturday, an Air Force C-130 cargo plane from San Antonio took 12 more migrants for surgery after the delegation issued a statement urging the administration to “stop this misguided mission soon.”
ICE began using less expensive charter planes to transport migrants to Guantanamo on February 28th to transport migrants to bases. The government refused to explain the use of more expensive military aircraft. “Immigration and customs enforcement cannot be commented due to the pending lawsuit,” Ice said in a statement Monday.
“After investigating immigration relocation activities in Guantanamo Bay, we are furious at the scale and waste of the misuse of the Trump administration's military,” five senators said in a statement.
They called immigration operations “unsustainable and expensive, operate under suspicious legal authority and are detrimental to our military preparation.”
Guantanamo is a particularly expensive place as it is blocked from the rest of the island by Cuban minefields. The base produces its own energy and water, and supplies are shipped from Florida by barges and aircraft.
The delegation was critical of the mission, but not an estimated 900 military members and the 100 homeland security employees mobilized to the base to carry it out.
Some units “were rushed to Guantanamo Bay without notice and left their important daily military missions to protect migrants who would never be filled and not be held there,” the statement said.
“This would be better both economically and legally clear if the military is not involved,” he continued.
ICE decides that they will need military aircraft, and the Pentagon will provide them.
Congressional aides said the operation is controlled by a secret memorandum between the defense and homeland security sectors, which say only migrants with links to cross-border criminal organizations will be sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Hegseth said on January 30 that Guantánamo “is being deported abroad and therefore serves as temporary transport for violent offence corporations.
However, the administration refuses to provide evidence that foreigners held at the base have a violent criminal history. Checks of those whose identity was published showed that their crimes were the equivalent of illegal entry into the United States.
According to a New York Times relocation tracking, the Department of Homeland Security has housed 395 migrants in Guantanamo Bay.
On February 20, the US sent 177 Venezuelans from Guantanamo to Honduras, where they boarded a Venezuelan plane home.
All but 17 others were returned to U.S. ice facilities, and several known cases were deported from there.
Manufactured audio Adrian Hurst.
