Photo credit: the Guardian
Jose is a Venezuelan migrant who was seeking asylum in the US. However, he ended up in Guantanamo Bay, home of the notorious US prison camp that administration officials said would house the most violent “worst of the worst” migrants apprehended on American soil.
ABC News reports Jose as saying, “When we got on the (military) plane, they put restraints on our hands, feet, and waist. They searched us and then sat us in a chair, tying us to it and binding our feet together. We hoped it wouldn’t be Guantanamo but in the end, that’s where we ended up.”
He is one of over 170 migrants who spent two weeks at the naval base before being deported.
He told ABC News that he had travelled to Mexico’s northern border to wait for an asylum appointment that he requested through the US Customs and Border Protection app, before it was shut down by the Trump administration. After three weeks of waiting and “no food or place to stay,” he decided to surrender to authorities at the southern border. He was promptly detained at a detention centre pending his transfer to Guantanamo.
Jose said, From the moment we were there, we tried to kick the doors, we went on countless strikes. we clogged the toilets and protested, we covered the cameras because the confinement is unbearable.
“They give you food … but it’s like they don’t give you any, (it’s) very little food. There came a point where I would lick the plate. The food had no salt, but I would still eat it. It is as if it were very tasty, because I was hungry.”
He said he and other detainees were only allowed outside twice in two weeks and were denied phone calls with relatives and families.
“There are four cages outside. That’s the yard. You leave one room to go into another cell,” he said.
Bastidas Paz surrendered to authorities after crossing the southern border from Mexico in 2023. He was charged with “improper entry” to which he pleaded guilty. He was in a detention centre in El Paso, Texas until he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
Both men told ABC News they are not members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, despite the US government saying they are.
Bastidas said, “We’re not from Tren de Aragua or anything, we’re not criminals, we’re immigrants.
“I don’t think it’s fair that they’re taking us there, like that, with lies, because practically we’re being taken there, kidnapped, without telling us anything, and when we realize it, they leave us there, and I don’t think it’s fair.
“We’re immigrants and we haven’t committed any crime to be taken to that very ugly prison. I haven’t slept at all because of the fear that I might fall asleep and… I’d wake up back there. That’s the error I feel.”
