Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration Saturday to stop it from transferring 10 migrants detained within the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, their second authorized problem in lower than a month over plans for holding up to 30,000 immigrants there for deportation.
The most recent federal lawsuit up to now applies solely to 10 males dealing with switch to the naval base in Cuba, and their attorneys stated the administration won’t notify them of who might be transferred or when. Like a lawsuit the identical attorneys filed earlier this month for entry to migrants already detained there, the most recent case was filed in Washington and is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
At the very least 50 migrants have been transferred already to Guantanamo Bay, and the civil rights attorneys consider the quantity now could also be about 200. They’ve stated it’s the first time in U.S. historical past that the federal government has detained non-citizens on civil immigration prices there. For many years, the naval base was primarily used to detain foreigners related to the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults.
Trump has stated Guantanamo Bay, often known as “Gitmo,” has area for as much as 30,000 immigrants residing within the U.S. and that he plans to send “the worst” or high-risk “prison aliens” there. The administration has not launched particular data on who’s being transferred, so it isn’t clear what crimes they’re accused of committing within the U.S. and whether or not they have been convicted in courtroom, or merely charged or arrested.
“The aim of this second Guantanamo lawsuit is to stop extra folks from being illegally despatched to this infamous jail, the place the circumstances have now been revealed to be inhumane,” stated Lee Gelernt, an ACLU lawyer and lead counsel on the case. “The lawsuit is just not claiming they can’t be detained in U.S. amenities, however solely that they can’t be despatched to Guantanamo.”
The ten males are from nations together with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Venezuela, and their attorneys say they’re neither high-risk criminals nor gang members. In a Jan. 29 govt order increasing operations at Guantanamo Bay, Trump stated that one in every of his objectives is to “dismantle prison cartels.”
Their attorneys described their newest lawsuit as an emergency submitting to halt imminent transfers and problem the Trump administration’s plans. They contend that the transfers violate the boys’s proper to due authorized course of, assured by the Fifth Modification to the U.S. Structure
The most recent lawsuit additionally argues that federal immigration regulation bars the switch of non-Cuban migrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay and that the U.S. authorities has no authority to carry folks outdoors its territory, and the naval base stays a part of Cuba legally. The transfers are additionally described as arbitrary.
The boys’s attorneys allege that most of the individuals who have been despatched to Guantanamo Bay would not have critical prison data and even any prison historical past. Their first lawsuit, filed Feb. 12, stated migrants despatched to the naval base had “successfully disappeared right into a black field” and couldn’t contact attorneys or household. The U.S. Division of Homeland Safety, one of many businesses sued, stated they might attain attorneys by cellphone.
In one other, separate federal lawsuit filed in New Mexico, a federal decide on Feb. 9 blocked the transfer of three immigrants from Venezuela being held in that state to Guantanamo Bay. Their attorneys stated they’d been falsely accused of being gang members.
The migrant detention middle at Guantanamo operates individually from the U.S. navy’s detention middle and courtrooms for foreigners detained beneath President George W. Bush throughout what Bush known as its conflict on terror. It as soon as held practically 800 folks, however the quantity has dwindled to fifteen, together with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was assigned to Guantanamo when he was on lively obligation, has known as it a “good place” to deal with migrants, and Trump has described the naval base as “a tricky place to get out of.”
A United Nations investigator who visited the navy detention middle in 2023 stated circumstances had improved, however navy detainees nonetheless confronted close to fixed surveillance, pressured elimination from their cells and unjust use of restraints, leading to “ongoing merciless, inhuman and degrading therapy beneath worldwide regulation.” The U.S. stated it disagreed “in vital respects” together with her report.
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