Immigrants’ Rights Advocates Demand Trump Administration Provide Information, Access to Immigrants Transferred to Guantánamo Bay
WASHINGTON – Immigrants’ rights advocates signed a letter today urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DOD), and State Department to provide immediate access to the noncitizens transferred from immigration detention facilities in the United States and currently detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Their letter comes ahead of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s planned visit to Guantánamo on Friday.
“Sending immigrants from the U.S. to Guantánamo and holding them incommunicado without access to counsel or the outside world opens a new shameful chapter in the history of this notorious prison,” said Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “It is unlawful for our government to use Guantánamo as a legal black hole, yet that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing.”
The letter was signed by more than a dozen organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Immigrant Justice, American Gateways, Amica Center, Center for Constitutional Rights, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Human Rights First, International Refugee Assistance Project, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the SF Bay Area, National Immigrant Justice Center, National Immigration Law Center, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and Texas Civil Rights Project.
“Questions abound regarding the authority for these transfers, which agency will have custody of the noncitizens, where they would be housed, and how the government will carry out the complicated and expensive logistics of this operation while respecting its legal obligations and the rights of noncitizens in the government’s custody,” the letter states. Despite these unknowns, the government has already transferred ten Venezuelan noncitizens to Guantánamo, with reports of additional deportation flights en route.
In addition to access to the noncitizens recently transferred and currently detained at the naval base, the immigrants’ rights groups are demanding information regarding:
- The immigration status of the ten noncitizens detained there
- Who the government intends to transfer to and detain at Guantánamo, including what criteria, legal or otherwise, the administration is or will be using to decide who to transfer and detain at Guantánamo
- Which government agency has custody of the transferred noncitizens at Guantánamo
- What authority is the government invoking to transfer noncitizens from the United States to Guantánamo and what authority the government is invoking to hold them at Guantánamo
- The length of time that the government will be holding these noncitizens at Guantánamo and plans for them after
“The government cannot attempt to subvert the statutory and constitutional rights afforded to these noncitizens in the United States by transferring them to an offshore prison and holding them incommunicado without access to counsel or any means of contact with the outside world,” the letter continues.
The letter is available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/urgent-request-for-access-to-and-information-regarding-immigrants-transferred-from-the-united-states-and-detained-at-guantanamo-bay
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Press ReleaseMar 2025
Immigrants' Rights
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Immigrants' Rights
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Immigrants' Rights
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Washington, D.C.Mar 2025
Immigrants' Rights
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