Hegseth - who traveled to the Navy installation with no pooled press, instead bringing former Fox News colleague Laura Ingraham - toured detention facilities and spoke with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as well as Marines running the base’s Migrant Operations Center, according to videos and images posted to the Pentagon chief’s official X account.
The Pentagon provided few other details of the trip, but social media posts revealed that Hegseth arrived at Guantánamo shortly before a cargo plane carrying migrants landed at the installation. In a video of Hegseth and Ingraham speaking with a two-star Army general, the plane can be seen in the background.
“I was able to witness a grey-tail arrival of illegal aliens at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay,” Hegseth said in the post to X.
He also posted a photo of himself having lunch with members of the Joint Task Force Southern Guard, made up of ICE agents and service members who staff the operation.
“These warriors are directly supporting the apprehension and deportation of dangerous illegal aliens,” Hegseth wrote. “We cannot thank them or their families enough.”
President Trump last month ordered the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to set up the naval base to house migrants before they are deported to their home countries.
The effort has been bumpy, with confusion over who is the lead, conflicting messages as to what will happen to migrants once they arrive and halted efforts to place migrants in tent structures built the base due to concerns that they don’t meet ICE detention standards, CNN reported.
Trump administration officials said it would build tents to house an anticipated 30,000 people transferred there from the U.S., but those erected so far are currently not being used because they lack air conditioning or electricity.
On Tuesday, DHS and DOD were housing 17 men - eight of whom were taken into custody by ICE after Trump took office - who officials say are designated for deportation. They included seven men from Honduras, four from Colombia, three from El Salvador, two from Guatemala and one from Ecuador, The New York Times reported.
The base, since Feb. 4, has been used to hold foreign citizens removed from the United States, and so far, has held 178 other men, all Venezuelans, according to the Times.
Hegseth’s visit is his first since being sworn in as Pentagon chief. He previously was deployed to the base as an Army lieutenant in 2004-5 while serving in an infantry unit of the New Jersey National Guard.
