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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 30, 2025
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IRAP | Spencer Tilger | media@refugeerights.org
“BEYOND THE PALE” – IRAP DENOUNCES TRUMP PLAN TO EXPAND DETENTION OF MIGRANTS AT GUANTANAMO BAY
Recent IRAP Report Highlighted Inhumane and Unlawful Conditions at the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center
(New York, NY) – Yesterday, President Trump signed a memo directing the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to expand the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center (GMOC) at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, signaling in a speech an intent to detain up to 30,000 people there. This would be the first time since the 1990s that the U.S. government would use Guantánamo to detain immigrants at this scale, and the first time ever the facility would be used to detain people already present in the United States.
Last September, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) released a report detailing the U.S. government’s practice of interdicting refugee families at sea and detaining them indefinitely in inhumane and unlawful conditions at the GMOC. Offshoring Human Rights: Detention of Refugees at Guantánamo Bay compiled testimony from refugees formerly detained at the base and from former U.S. government officials and advocates to provide an inside look at the detention site.
Following the release of the report, IRAP and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the U.S. government to compel the disclosure of records about the interdiction and detention of refugees held at this ignoble facility, and 131 human rights organizations sent an open letter urging the U.S. government to close the detention center.
The following is a statement from Deepa Alagesan, Senior Supervising Attorney in IRAP’s Litigation department:
“Everyone should be alarmed that President Trump is attempting to create a mass detention camp insulated from oversight and the public eye. Refugees are already detained at Guantánamo Bay in inhumane conditions, and expanding the facility will be nothing short of disastrous.
IRAP previously represented a Cuban refugee family that was held at Guantánamo for nearly a year. Our clients were denied the ability to speak to their lawyers without guards violating confidentiality and were subjected to collective punishment including confinement to their rooms for weeks on end. Their children experienced such acute physical and psychological distress that a medical provider at the base urged the U.S. government to release them from custody. Our clients were finally resettled to a safe third country only after IRAP threatened to sue.
Forcibly separating tens of thousands of people from their families and communities and sending them to an offshore black box that is unable to provide basic standards of care even to a small population is beyond the pale and must be rejected. This is a dangerous escalation of the Trump administration’s indiscriminate and harmful mass deportation agenda and must not go unchecked. Guantánamo should be closed, not expanded.”
Additional Resources
- Read IRAP’s recent report: “Offshoring Human Rights: Detention of Refugees at Guantánamo Bay;” Executive Summary available HERE
- The report is also available in Spanish and Haitian Creole
- Read about IRAP and the ACLU’s Guantánamo FOIA litigation: HERE
- Read the letter signed by 131 human rights organizations urging the U.S. to close the detention center: HERE
- Read the New York Times exclusive covering IRAP’s report: HERE
The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) is a global legal aid and advocacy organization working to create a world where refugees and all people seeking safety are empowered to claim their right to freedom of movement and a path to lasting refuge. Everyone should have a safe place to live and a safe way to get there.
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