Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration on Wednesday to gain access to detained migrants who they say have been flown to Guantanamo Bay and held there without being able to consult lawyers or speak to relatives.
“It’s troubling enough that we are even sending immigrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo, but it’s beyond the pale that we are holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family or the outside world,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement.
The federal lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., and backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, says this is the first time in U.S. history that the government has detained non-citizens on civil immigration charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
The lawsuit's plaintiffs also include four advocacy groups: Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, American Gateways and Americans for Immigrant Justice.
Guantanamo is home to one of the most notorious prisons in the world, used when the U.S. government has attempted to operate in secret, without legal constraint or accountability,” the suit says.
