CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Nearly 200 Venezuelan immigrants to the U.S. were returned to their home country after being detained at Guantanamo Bay, in a flurry of flights that forged an unprecedented pathway for U.S. deportations.

The United States has started sending more migrants deemed by officials to be “high threat” criminal aliens to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, just days after emptying out the base’s migrant facilities.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth traveled to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Tuesday to visit the migrant detention center the department restarted using in recent weeks. The military deployed hundreds of service members to the base after President Donald Trump ordered the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to use it to house dangerous migrants

Democratic lawmakers are questioning the long-term damage detaining migrants at Guantanamo Bay will have on U.S. military resources as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth toured and touted the mission unfolding at the naval base in Cuba.