US deports Venezuelan immigrants after judge halts transfer to Guantanamo Bay
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Photo: AP
El Paso: Three immigrants who obtained a restraining order against the federal government to avoid transfer to Cuba's Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were deported this week on direct flights to Venezuela, according to court documents released Friday.
The three men were deported on Monday, one day after a federal judge issued a temporary order preventing their transfer to Guantanamo Bay. As part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, Venezuelan immigrants are flown daily from a military base in El Paso, Texas, to Guantanamo.
Lawyers for the deported men claimed that the US government had falsely accused them of gang connection, which might put them in danger, AP reported.
“The government's baseless accusations in this case that two of the (immigrants) are affiliated with the infamous Tren de Aragua gang raises grave concerns about risks to their lives and freedom upon their return to Venezuela,” attorney Jessica Myers Vosburgh of the Centre for Constitutional Rights told a federal judge.
Immigrant rights organisations have filed a separate complaint requesting access to persons who have been transported to Guantanamo Bay without legal representation or communication with relatives.
Millions of people in desperate situations have fled Venezuela amid President Nicolás Maduro's catastrophic economic and political crisis, relocating to other regions of Latin America or the United States. More than a decade ago, the Tren de Aragua gang formed in a chaotic prison in Aragua, Venezuela's central state.