This editorial was originally published in The Washington Post and was distributed by The Associated Press.
•â¶Ä¢â¶Ä¢
Since President George W. Bush opened the facility in 2002, at the height of the “war on terror,†the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has been associated with torture, isolation, indefinite detention and the denial of basic constitutional protections, including the right to counsel and a fair trial. Most detainees there have been terrorism suspects captured on battlefields in Afghanistan or Iraq, or whisked away on U.S. military aircraft during “extraordinary renditions.†Their treatment violated the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws.
And this was precisely the point. Holding inmates on a U.S. naval base in Cuba kept them outside the protections of U.S. law and the Constitution. Guantanamo detainees could assert no due process rights because they were not on American soil.
Now, here we go again.
Last month, President Donald Trump, as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration, signed an executive order to expand Guantanamo and fill it with “the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.†The first batch of nearly 200 migrant detainees shipped there were Venezuelans, described by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem as “the worst of the worst.†After they were sent back to Venezuela, reports of their treatment at Guantanamo began to emerge.
A detailed report in The Post described how some were kept shackled in windowless cages, deprived of sunlight and allowed outdoors for only one hour each week. They were subjected to humiliating, invasive strip searches and denied access to lawyers and phone calls to loved ones. Some screamed during long hours in isolation; others threatened or attempted suicide.
Some legal experts, human rights groups and the United Nations consider prolonged solitary confinement a form of cruel and unusual punishment, but the U.S. Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on it. Denying the detainees access to lawyers would seem to violate the right to due process. But again, in Cuba, the prisoners are in what lawyers have called a “legal black hole.â€
Also, Noem’s claim that the first group of detainees included “the worst of the worst†criminals has not been verified and seems, at best, a wild exaggeration. A separate article in The Post, based on court records and conversations with detainees’ relatives, found that some of the prisoners did not have violent criminal records. Their only crime seems to have been illegally crossing the border to enter the United States.
By using Guantanamo to house migrants rounded up in enforcement raids, the Trump administration seems to want to create the public impression that undocumented immigrants are a particularly dangerous category of criminal — on a par with the 9/11 plotters and other suspected terrorists. And it seems to want to put the undocumented immigrant community in America — and people thinking of trying to join it — on notice that, if you get caught, you might end up at Guantanamo Bay in notoriously bad conditions.
In its 23 years of operation, the Guantanamo Bay prison has become a stain on America’s reputation as a country that values the rule of law and respects human rights. Even Bush belatedly recognized the damage it had done to the country’s global standing. Bush, followed by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, tried to close Guantanamo but was stymied by Congress. Trump, who promised to keep the prison open, views it as a useful tool in his war against illegal immigration.
Many Americans support stricter enforcement of immigration laws and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes. Indeed, this was one of the main reasons Trump was elected. But Americans also want deportations to be handled humanely.
Using Guantanamo Bay is unnecessary, wasteful and cruel. The prison should become a shuttered relic of America’s unfortunate past — not a way station for deported migrants awaiting return to their home countries.
