ACLU Sues Trump Administration to Keep Immigrants out of Guantánamo Bay

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed many lawsuits against the Trump Administration for various unlawful or unconstitutional policies, totaling over 400 legal actions, many of which regard immigration. An ACLU spokesperson stated that “Trump is one of the most lawless presidents in modern history, even as he touts a ‘law and order’ agenda.”

Recently, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for banning asylum access at the southern border, which places asylum seekers in life-threatening danger. Seeking asylum is a human right, and they are allowed to apply for asylum regardless of how they enter the country, according to US law.

Another lawsuit is to stop the unlawful transfer of immigrants to Guantánamo Bay, because those actions violate federal immigration laws. ICE is not legally permitted to detain people in foreign countries, but the US has already transferred immigrants to the detention facility.

Detainees at “Gitmo Bay” are subjected to inhumane conditions including torture, long-term solitary confinement, unsanitary living conditions, forced feeding, poor medical and mental care, and challenges to obtaining and using legal representation. Many human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Center for Constitutional Rights, Berkeley Human Rights Center, Center for Victims of Torture, and the United Nations have condemned the human rights violations and cruelty seen at Guantánamo Bay.

“Sending immigrants to a remote abusive prison is not only illegal and unprecedented, but illogical given the additional cost and logistical complications,” Lee Gelernt, the lead counsel and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project said.

There have been many calls for the prison center at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba to close down, and recently the Trump administration began sending immigrants from the US to the facility. This comes after the release of one of the longest-held detainees, Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi, who was held for over 20 years without charges.

“Never before has the federal government moved immigrants held in the United States on civil immigration charges to Guantánamo. People are suffering under this new order and the Trump administration’s lawless actions will not go unchallenged,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project.

The facility is on a US naval base on the south side of Cuba, and while it is not technically “lawless,” it has been regarded as a detention facility where legal norms have been undermined or outright ignored. Detainees have not been able to use their rights to due process or fair trail, as they have often been held without charges or trials, and without the ability to contest or seek fair representation. Civil rights such as those are guaranteed by both US law and international law such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty, which the US has ratified.

Since 2003, an estimated 780 people have passed through those cells, many were held indefinitely and tortured with “enhanced interrogation techniques” also employed in the middle east during America’s “war on terror.”

Many of the detainees were imprisoned under false charges and even false names—sometimes a case of mistaken identity, other times a case of falsified records to “prove” the detainee was a terrorist or enemy combatant. Some of the mistaken identities include Maher Arar, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Mansoor Adayfi whose memoir Don’t Forget Us Here  details his 15-year imprisonment after being kidnapped to be imprisoned on the other side of the world.

“For decades, Guantánamo has been the site of grave human rights abuses perpetrated by the U.S. government,” said Kimberly Grano, staff attorney, U.S. litigation, with the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). “The Trump administration is exploiting this sordid history to send the message that no cruelty is off limits in its assault on the rights and humanity of immigrants.

The US Department of Defense alleged that the first ten “high-threat illegal aliens” arrived at Guantánamo Bay on February 5^th, 2025, and by February 18^th, over 170 people were transferred there for detainment. The facility has the capacity to hold 2,500 nonviolent persons but the Trump Administration is making efforts to house up to 30,000 persons there.