Feb. 27 (UPI) — More than 100 immigrants have been detained on U.S. soil and sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba since President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration began.
The ACLU, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and family members on behalf of detainees have filed a lawsuit against Kristi Noem, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies involved, seeking an immediate suspension of the Trump administration’s practice of detaining immigrants at Guantanamo Bay.
Attorneys argue they are being denied access to legal representation and contact with family.
Some have learned that their relatives are being held there only after seeing photos of them in the media. Attorneys and immigrant advocacy organizations say they are being put in a proverbial black box with no way of contacting family or legal counsel.
The Trump administration responded in a filing last week that it has instituted a policy to allow detainees to make calls to attorneys. According to the government’s response in the U.S. District Court in Washington, access has been provided for three detainees and “preliminary access procedures have been developed for others at the facility.”
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU National Immigrants Rights Project, told UPI that the attorney access the government has provided is not adequate.
The government said in its court response that 178 people have been moved to Guantanamo Bay with final orders of removal to Venezuela. In an email to UPI on Tuesday, a defense official confirmed that 120 people, referred to as “high threat illegal aliens,” have been repatriated — returned to their countries of origin.
There are still 15 post-Sept. 11 detainees held at Guantanamo. The “high threat illegal alien” detainees are being held in a separate facility with the capacity to hold 130 people.
The government’s response to the lawsuit said higher-threat detainees are held in Camp VI and lower-threat detainees are held “in and around” the Migrant Operations Center. The Migrant Operations Center is where Haitian and Cuban refugees were held in the 1990s.
The defense official, Department of Homeland Security and the government’s response to the motion for a temporary restraining order did not confirm or deny if soft-sided detention units — tents — are being used to detain immigrants.
Trump said he wants the base to be expanded to hold 30,000 people in detention.
Gelernt said it is unclear what the Trump administration’s criteria is for sending people to Guantanamo Bay.
“Originally it was Venezuelan men who they were alleging were the worst of the worst,” he said. “Through talking to families, it’s clear these are not all gang members and many have no criminal history.”
The defense official did not confirm whether all detainees were Venezuelan.
The first group sent to Guantanamo Bay under Trump’s initiative, consisting of 10 people, were described by the Department of Homeland Security as members of a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua. The Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization.
Twelve people submitted declarations for the plaintiffs as part of the lawsuit against the government, including three people who are or were detained. Others were family members or friends who believed someone they know is detained in Guantanamo. Several argue that their family member has been falsely and unfairly accused of being a member of Tren de Aragua.
One family member said under oath that their husband, who they believe is in Guantanamo, has never been charged or convicted of a crime in the United States or Venezuela.
Luis Alberto Castillo Rivera, a Guantanamo detainee who entered the United States on Jan. 19, said in the lawsuit that he was detained on Feb. 3, despite having come to the country with a CBP One appointment.
Rivera alleges he has been given no information and was not able to call an attorney until Feb. 17. It was also Feb. 17 when he learned that he was in Guantanamo Bay. He complains that he is held in a small cell with a thin mattress and the food detainees are provided is not enough and is not edible.
“Even though I followed the law and even though I have family in the United States, I was detained the whole time I was in the United States and never got to see a judge,” Rivera said in his declaration.
In the 1990s, more than 20,000 Haitian and Cuban refugees who were intercepted on their way to the United States were held at Guantanamo Bay. About 50,000 refugees spent at least some time detained there.
Niels Frenzen, co-director of the University of Southern California’s Immigration Clinic, litigated on behalf of Haitian detainees at Guantanamo before it was used to hold enemy combatants and terrorism suspects after Sept. 11. He explained that Guantanamo’s location and the fact that it is isolated are chief reasons why the U.S. government uses it.
“There has been some question about whether American courts have jurisdiction over people detained there,” Frenzen told UPI. “That was certainly an attractive feature, from the United States government’s perspective, that we can detain people out of the sight of the media and make it difficult for lawyers to get to them.”
The question of jurisdiction was raised in regards to Haitian and Cuban immigrants that were held at Guantanamo. In 1993 the government argued that, because they never reached U.S. soil, they do not have the rights afforded U.S. refugee protections.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed that immigrants intercepted on international waters could be sent back to their country of origin without determining if they have a legitimate refugee claim in the United States.
Justice Harry Blackmun wrote a dissenting opinion, criticizing the Bush administration for forcing refugees back to places where they will be abused or perhaps killed.
The lawsuit currently against the government similarly argues that detainees could face charges similar to treason if they are returned to their countries of origin knowing that they sought refuge in the United States.
The case for detainees under the Trump administration differs greatly from that of the Cuban and Haitian refugees. In this case, people were detained while in the United States and moved to Guantanamo.
“When the government transports someone, those people bring their rights with them,” Joseph Margulies, professor of practice in the Department of Government at Cornell University, told UPI. “You can’t deprive someone of their rights by casting them out. They’ve got to give immigration groups access to these folks. They have to have a way to contest their detention. There’s got to be a means where someone can say, ‘Hold it, you’ve got the wrong guy.'”
Margulies was the lead counsel in the first case brought on behalf of post-Sept. 11, prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. In the case, Rasul vs. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that foreign nationals who are captured abroad have the statutory right to challenge their detention in federal court.
“At this point they are making some of the same mistakes with immigration detainees,” Margulies said. “The lack of transparency about who is there, aside from the broad condemnations of the ‘worst of the worst,’ which is exactly the type of language used for post-Sept. 11 detainees. That authorizes you to treat them in a way that is inconsistent with values and contrary to law.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
