Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave the photojournalist President Donald Trump praised as the “no. 1 photographer in the world” a close-up of the administration’s plans for the controversial Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
The New York Times' Doug Mills was invited to photograph Noem and Guantánamo Bay personnel on Friday at the U.S. Navy compound as men described as Venezuelan gang members were brought to the facility.
His glossy images highlighted Mills' signature talent for capturing intimate moments within administrations, including one shot of a glammed-up Noem, with curled hair and a Department of Homeland Security baseball cap, seated in the cockpit of a deportation flight.
The Times reported that U.S Armed Forces and homeland security staff are in the process of erecting a tent city to house potentially thousands of migrants at the base, which also hosts a military prison.
Mills shared an image taken during the transfer of the roughly dozen men to the new setup at the facility in southeast Cuba.
The longtime White House photographer has covered the White House across the terms of seven different Oval Office occupants, but Trump in particular has been effusive in his praise for Mills' photographs of him—especially notable, given how the president spends most of his time bashing the mainstream press.
He was able to document Noem overseeing the arrival of the deportees—who the Times reported are alleged members of violent multinational criminal syndicate Tren de Aragua—from the rooftop of the base’s aircraft hangar.
A photo of her looking down at them was published in the newspaper, along with other images of her being briefed by military officials.
The Trump administration announced last month that it would use the base, colloquially known as Gitmo, to house up to 30,000 deportees as part of its crackdown on illegal border crossings.
The facility has an existing migration detention center, but officials determined adding tent camps surrounded by fencing was necessary to accommodate the large volume of new detainees the administration is planning to send, NBC News reported.
In a video taken during her Gitmo visit and posted to X, Noem said the facility would house “the worst of the worst.”
Noem said “they won’t be there for long,” although that conflicts somewhat with Trump’s own statements, who last month said the facility was being reserved for some deportees who are allegedly so dangerous they wouldn’t even be sent home.
“Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo,” Trump said.
The detention camp at Gitmo was first established to hold terrorist suspects in 2002 by order of former President George W. Bush, and became increasingly controversial amid revelations of detainees being tortured.
“Having endured nearly 15 years in Guantánamo without due process, subjected to torture and inhumane conditions, I can attest to the facility’s capacity for cruelty,” wrote Mansoor Adayfi, a former detainee who said Trump’s opening of the facility to deportees “opens the door to further abuses under the guise of national security.”
Former president Barack Obama failed to follow through on a promise to close down Gitmo during his time in office.
Noem, meanwhile, has been the face of a sustained publicity blitz since she was confirmed last month, acting as one of the administration’s most trusted spokespeople for Trump’s hardline, protectionist agenda.
She joined a heavily-promoted ICE immigration raid in New York City, visited law enforcement at the U.S-Mexico border, and has made headline appearances on NBC’s Meet the Press and Fox New’s morning flagship chat show Fox & Friends.
Critics have ridiculed her style choices for a handful of appearances—she wore a law enforcement vest during the ICE raid and a cowboy hat indoors while speaking to Meet the Press, prompting journalist Aaron Rupar to note: “Cosplay Kristi is at it again.”
During her Gitmo visit, Noem wore a modest t-shirt, ball cap and jeans.
