DHS Secretary Noem goes to Guantanamo to finalize logistics on housing deported illegal migrants

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is traveling Friday to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to finalize Trump administration logistics to house illegal migrants being deported to the post's Migrant Operations Center.

A Department of Homeland Security official confirmed the trip to the Miami Herald newspaper.

The George W. Bush administration established the center after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to detain terror suspects. 

The Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center (GMOC) is a migrant detention facility at Guantanamo Bay detention camp and is a U.S. facility within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB). 

The detention camp contains the prison for high-security terrorism suspects and is distinct from GMOC. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month to have the departments of Defense and Homeland Security expand the center to hold thousands of illegal migrants coming from the U.S.

Noem announced Friday flights of illegal migrants have already left for the facility.

"A second flight of dangerous criminal aliens took off for Guantanamo Bay yesterday," Noem wrote on the social media platform, X. "ALL are known gang members from Venezuela."

She said the migrants have been convicted of homicide, robbery and weapons trafficking. 

Under this order, the department will work with the Department of Homeland Security on the effort to prepare the  30,000-bed facility.

Right now, 15 detainees are still at Guantanamo with some ready for transfer, according to the Defense Department.