January 29, 2025, New York – In response to President Trump’s executive order to prepare a massive facility at Guantánamo to detain immigrants, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement from Executive Director Vince Warren:

President Trump’s decision to use Guantánamo – global symbol and site of lawlessness, torture, and racism – to house immigrants should horrify us all. Like many of Trump’s authoritarian attacks on human rights, this one has shameful precedents in U.S. history. Long before the second Bush administration used the facility to hold and abuse nearly 800 Muslim men and boys as part of its “war on terror,” the first Bush administration held Haitian refugees there to try to deny them their rights under international law.

The order  – directing the DOD and DHS prepare to hold 30,000 people – sends a clear message: migrants and asylum seekers are being cast as the new terrorist threat, deserving to be discarded in an island prison, removed from legal and social services and supports. The Center for Constitutional Rights has challenged the U.S. government’s use of Guantánamo in all its incarnations, and we, along with our partners, will do so again.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for 23 years – representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that nearly all the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. Among other Guantánamo cases, the Center has represented the families of men who died at Guantánamo, men who have been released and are seeking justice in international courts, and men who were charged before the military commissions.