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This Tattoo Could Land You in Guantánamo
The U.S. government is using tattoos, sometimes nothing more than a name, a date, or even a tribute to a favorite athlete, as justification to label migrants as “gang-affiliated” and ship them off to Guantánamo Bay.
Feb 22, 2025
Imagine being forced to leave everything behind, your home, your family, your dreams, because U.S. sanctions have devastated your country’s economy, making day-to-day living increasingly unbearable. You endure a treacherous journey, risking everything for a chance at stability and to help your family back home, only to be met with handcuffs and an indefinite sentence in one of the world’s most infamous prisons.
This is the fate of many migrants, including Venezuelans, fleeing an economic war waged by U.S. policies. One of President Donald Trump’s first actions was to sign an executive order expanding the Migrant Operations Center at Guantánamo Bay to detain up to 30,000 migrants, labeling them as “criminal illegal aliens.” Following mounting legal challenges and international scrutiny, the U.S. government has now deported 177 Venezuelan migrants who were detained at the naval base.
According to U.S. officials, 126 of them had criminal charges or convictions, and 80 were accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang. Fifty-one had no criminal records. Human rights advocates raised concerns about the lack of transparency in the U.S. classification of detainees, especially given the cases where migrants were detained at Guantánamo based on nothing more than their tattoos.
Locking up migrants on stolen land while troops sip Starbucks and grab a Big Mac isn’t security for the “homeland,” it’s a grotesque spectacle of unchecked power and horrific violation of human rights.
Yes, the U.S. government is using tattoos, sometimes nothing more than a name, a date, or even a tribute to a favorite athlete, as justification to label migrants as “gang-affiliated” and ship them off to Guantánamo Bay.
Take Luis Castillo, a 23-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker, who was detained at the border and later sent to Guantánamo simply because he had a Michael Jordan tattoo.
Let that sink in.
A Michael Jordan tattoo. Never mind that millions worldwide have the same logo inked on their skin or that it appears on bumper stickers, billboards, and sneakers everywhere. By this logic, half the country should be under surveillance. But when it comes to migrants, suddenly, a tattoo is a ticket to indefinite imprisonment.
Luis was detained, then abruptly sent to Guantánamo Bay on February 4, cut off from his family and legal representation. His sister, Yajaira Castillo, had been desperately trying to find out where he was, telling reporters, “He’s innocent. He just wanted a chance at life.”
Luis is not alone. Dozens of Venezuelans and other asylum-seekers have been flown to Guantánamo under vague security classifications, with no access to attorneys and no clear path to getting out of Guantanamo.
Why Guantánamo?
For decades, Guantánamo has been a legal black hole where the U.S. government detains people it does not want to acknowledge. It is a place built on stolen land, Cuban territory that the U.S. has occupied since 1903, against the will of the Cuban people and government.
Now, it is being repurposed yet again, this time to imprison desperate migrants, far from public scrutiny and without the legal protections guaranteed on U.S. soil.
A Dystopian Reality
Guantánamo is not just a prison; it’s a bizarre, dystopian military outpost where injustice coexists with American consumer culture. Just miles from where detainees are held indefinitely without trial, there is a McDonald’s, a Subway, a bowling alley, an escape room, and even a mini-golf course. The base has a recreation center, a movie theater, and a marina where troops and personnel can rent jet skis and go fishing! All within walking distance of a detention center infamous for torture.
And if that wasn’t surreal enough, the base also features a Starbucks, the only one on the island of Cuba, alongside a gift shop selling beer koozies, T-shirts, and shot glasses emblazoned with slogans like “Straight Outta GTMO” and “It Don’t GTMO Better Than This,” as if this were a quirky tourist attraction rather than a site dedicated to systemic human rights abuses.
By detaining migrants in Guantánamo, the U.S. government sidesteps legal obligations and publicity to create a system where people can be held indefinitely without due process.
The Cuban people have long demanded the closure of Guantánamo and the return of their land. Still, instead, the U.S. government continues to use it as a dumping ground for those it refuses to recognize as human beings. And in an absurd display of imperial arrogance, the U.S. still sends Cuba a check every year as “rent” for the base, money that the Cuban government refuses to cash, rejecting the illegal occupation.
Guantánamo should have been shut down long ago. Instead, it’s expanding because the U.S. government never misses an opportunity when it comes to cruelty. Locking up migrants on stolen land while troops sip Starbucks and grab a Big Mac isn’t security for the “homeland,” it’s a grotesque spectacle of unchecked power and horrific violation of human rights.
The Bigger Picture
The expansion of Guantánamo Bay as a migrant detention center marks a dangerous escalation in U.S. immigration policy. Instead of addressing the root causes of migration, many driven by U.S. economic and foreign policies, the government is doubling down on militarized enforcement, turning a site infamous for human rights abuses into a holding cell for asylum-seekers.
By detaining migrants in Guantánamo, the U.S. government sidesteps legal obligations and publicity to create a system where people can be held indefinitely without due process.
Guantánamo is more than a prison. It’s a symbol of unchecked power. Today, it holds Venezuelan migrants, but tomorrow, it could hold anyone the government deems inconvenient.
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'Hitlerian': Trump Vows to Deport Haitians Legally in Ohio to Venezuela
"The lies and conspiracies about Haitians are part of a larger volume of anti-immigrant and dehumanizing rhetoric that actively courts political violence," one immigrant rights advocate said.
Sep 14, 2024
U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his attack on the Haitian immigrant community of Springfield, Ohio on Friday when he promised to begin his mass deportation plan there if elected president.
"We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations," Trump told reporters at his golf course near Los Angeles, California. "We're going to get these people out. We're bringing them back to Venezuela."
Trump's remarks come despite the fact that most of the immigrants in Springfield are from Haiti and are in the country legally. Trump had previously pledged to deport the 15 to 20 million people who he says are or will be in this country illegally by the time he takes office. Speaking on Friday, he repeated his vow to carry out the "largest deportations in the history of our country," starting in Springfield and Aurora, Colorado, where online rumors have exaggerated isolated incidents of Venezuelan gang activity.
"This is Hitlerian rhetoric," USA Today columnist Rex Huppke wrote on social media in response to Trump's statement. "That's not being hyperbolic. He's dehumanizing legal immigrants, and for some reason saying he'll deport Haitians to Venezuela. I've followed Trump since the beginning. He has devolved to his most base, hateful level, an often incoherent racist."
Schools and city buildings in Springfield have received bomb threats in recent days after Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance elevated unfounded online rumors that newly arrived Haitian immigrants in the city were stealing and eating pets. One journalist referred to the Trump campaign's rhetoric as "blood libel."
Around 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved to Springfield in recent years, and the overwhelming majority are there legally with temporary protected status.
"The majority of Americans who reject this dark and dystopic vision and the lies courting violence should come together to denounce this outrageous spectacle of hatred and to chart a different direction for our nation."
"It's essential to recognize the larger strategy on display from the Republican Party and their allies," Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America's Voice, said in a statement Friday. "The lies and conspiracies about Haitians are part of a larger volume of anti-immigrant and dehumanizing rhetoric that actively courts political violence."
Cárdenas continued: "In addition to the lies about Haitians, which echo tropes like the antisemitic blood libel, Trump described this nation in increasingly violent and graphic terms... What's the potential response from an unhinged supporter hearing those words and believing those threats? It is violence like the Haitian community is fearful of, and Jewish, Latino, and Black Americans have already experienced in places like Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo."
Cárdenas also referenced a promise Trump made last Saturday that his mass deportations would be "bloody."
"The majority of Americans who reject this dark and dystopic vision and the lies courting violence should come together to denounce this outrageous spectacle of hatred and to chart a different direction for our nation," Cárdenas said.
Meanwhile, an immigrant rights group in Colorado also spoke up against Trump's deportation threats.
"Trump's fear mongering is as dangerous as it is dishonest," Gladis Ibarra, the co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said in a statement. "He doesn't care about Aurora or Colorado. He's using us as political pawns to push a racist agenda that paints our entire community in a bad light, and we won't fall for it. Immigrants are our teachers, our neighbors, our parents, and our children. We will not let them be demonized or ripped from our communities."
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Texas Gov. Spent $221 Million on Migrant Busing 'Political Stunt'
"Our schools are starved for resources with a $32.7 billion surplus, yet Gov. Abbott has no problem spending $1,841 per person for a political stunt," said one Texan.
Sep 05, 2024
Since April 2022, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has spent over $221 million in taxpayer money transporting nearly 120,000 migrants to six Democrat-led cities outside of the state, the Washington Examinerrevealed Thursday.
"That's roughly $1,841 per person," noted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council who has previously criticized Abbott's "dehumanizing" bus scheme and other elements of the governor's Operation Lone Star.
"By comparison, a bus ticket to New York costs about $215, while a flight costs about $350," he highlighted. "It would have WAY cheaper to just give migrants money for tickets. Abbott's effort not only made it a political stunt, it lined a contractor's pocket."
As the conservative Examiner reported:
A public information request filed to the Texas Division of Emergency Management showed that the state made more than 750 payments totaling $221,705,637 to transportation companies since the start of operations in April 2022 and August 2024.
Nearly all of the costs were picked up by the state's 30 million residents, with a small portion, $460,196, donated from outside parties. Less than 1% of the $221 million was picked up by nontaxpayers.
The Examiner noted that the almost 120,000 migrants bused north are a "small number" of the more than 5.3 million people who crossed the southern border illegally but have been allowed to remain in the United States since January 2021, according to a U.S. House Judiciary Committee draft report the outlet exclusively obtained earlier this year.
While the busing reportedly stopped earlier this summer due to lack of demand, Abbott's office said last month that since 2022, his taxpayer-funded scheme had transported over 45,900 migrants to New York City, 36,900 to Chicago, 19,200 to Denver, 12,500 to Washington, D.C., 3,400 to Philadelphia, and 1,500 to Los Angeles.
"The overwhelming majority of migrants didn't want to stay in Texas. They wanted to go elsewhere. So if the question was the most efficient way to help them leave the state, the answer would be just buy them tickets and not pay millions to bus them to NYC," Reichlin-Melnick said Thursday. "They are able to live wherever they want while they go through the court process. It's just that many people used up every last cent to get here, so a free bus from Abbott was a very enticing option."
"I've been on record saying that most migrants were extremely happy with the free buses. Despite a lot of lies out there about migrants being bought tickets, the reality is that nearly all migrants have to purchase transportation away from the border, making free buses a godsend," he added. "The problem with the buses has always been that they weaponized migrants by going to only a small handful of politically charged locations (regardless of where migrants wanted to go), and that they were a big waste of money given the cheaper option of donating bus/plane tickets."
In addition to the busing stunt, Abbott has come under fire in recent years for installing razor wire and buoys—which critics called "death traps"—in the Rio Grande as well as signing a pair of anti-migrant bills that Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, described as "deeply harmful and unconstitutional."
According to a New York Times investigation published in July, over half of the migrants bused out Texas were initially from Venezuela—a South American nation enduring not only ongoing political turmoil but also U.S. economic sanctions that, as hundreds of legal experts and groups wrote last month, "extensively harm civilian populations" and "often drive mass migration."
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