The number of troops being sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in support of migrant detention operations there continues to swell, with approximately 1,100 service members now deployed to the Navy base.

The U.S. government and a Venezuelan state airline flew 177 Venezuelan migrants from Guantanamo Bay to Honduras and on to Venezuela on Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security said.

A plane carrying more than 170 Venezuelan migrants who were held in Guantanamo Bay after being deported from the US arrived in Venezuela on Thursday, according to CNN sources.

A transfer operation on Thursday repatriated 177 Venezuelans via a handoff in Honduras, while one migrant was brought back to U.S. soil.

U.S. immigration and military authorities say they are holding exclusively Venezuelan immigrants subject to final deportation orders at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where nearly 180 people are being held in tents and high-security facilities,