TRUMP’S GUANTÁNAMO PLAN IS AN OLD IDEA — WITH AN UGLY HISTORY
During Trump’s first term, the administration routinely failed to respond to abuses in mainland US immigration detention facilities unless pressured by the public or the courts.
On Trump’s watch, a rogue doctor gave detained immigrant women medically unnecessary hysterectomies without their consent. Immigrants were kept in freezing cold US Customs and Border Protection cells known as “hieleras” with only mylar blankets to keep them warm. Children were separated from their parents, in some cases permanently, and kept in cages. Immigrants were deprived of basic hygiene products and provided with spoiled food. Immigration detention guards were accused of sexually assaulting and harassing detainees at one facility in Texas on a systemic basis.
In most of those cases, the administration only intervened following widespread public outcry or a court order.
The problem is that it’s much harder to have a window into conditions at Guantánamo than it was for any of those facilities exposed during the first Trump administration. That’s a key concern for immigrant advocates, who already struggle to deliver adequate access to counsel and oversight at mainland facilities, said Faisal Al-Juburi, a spokesperson for the immigrant legal defense organization RAICES.
Trump has also recently fired a slew of inspectors general, including one at the Department of Health and Human Services, who is in part responsible for overseeing detention conditions along with one at DHS.
“It is unlawful for our government to use Guantánamo as a legal black hole, yet that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing,” Gelernt said.
