The database states that detainees suspected of being transferred to Guantanamo are in “Florida,” but ICE isn’t disclosing their true location, and none of the men have had access to immigration attorneys or any communication with their families, who fear the men have entered a “legal black hole” under Donald Trump’s administration, according to the lawsuit.
A coalition of attorneys and civil rights groups — including the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights — and families of several detained immigrants are now suing the Trump administration for access to offer legal assistance.
“By hurrying immigrants off to a remote island cut off from lawyers, family, and the rest of the world, the Trump administration is sending its clearest signal yet that the rule of law means nothing to it,” according to Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
Detention of immigrants without access to legal aid “threatens to create a dangerous precedent” for the government to remove people seeking asylum to the Cuban prison, according to RAICES legal director Javier Hidalgo.
“It is appalling but not surprising that the Trump administration is exploiting and expanding the 21st century's greatest symbol of lawlessness and torture,” said Baher Azmy, legal director with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has led challenges against detention at the facility since the 1990s.
