Administration implementing Trump’s executive order while concealing information about effort

February 6, 2025, New York – Rights groups are seeking information about President Trump’s plan to establish a massive immigration detention center, by far the country’s largest, at Guantánamo. With migrants arriving there this week – the first in a proposed 30,000 – the administration is speeding to implement Trump’s executive order, while keeping the public in the dark about the nature, conditions, and terms of their confinement. 

In a Freedom of Access to Information (FOIA) request submitted today, the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), Detention Watch Network, and the Center for Constitutional Rights are targeting all records and communications related to the administration’s criteria for determining who will be sent to Guantánamo, their immigration status and nationalities, the legal rights and processes they will be afforded, how long they will be held at the facility, where they will be taken next, and the provision of food, health care, shelter, and other necessities. 

Said Baher Azmy, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been litigating for the rights of people detained in Guantanamo since 1991, “Every past use of Guantánamo –  the detention of thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing persecution in 1991, and the detention of Muslim (and only Muslim) men and boys apprehended in the ‘Global War on Terror’ – has resulted in cruelty, torture, and the abdication of law in favor of a racist security theater. Because Trump is following this same playbook, this request is necessary to ensure that advocates understand what his plans are for future detainees and are well-positioned to fight once again for basic human rights for those he would otherwise seek to demonize and discard.” 

The FOIA request traces the history of Guantánamo from the 1990s, when the U.S. government held Haitian refugees there, to the post-9/11 era when the Bush administration, as part of its global “war on terror,” established a prison there to indefinitely detain Muslim men and boys. Although past U.S. presidents have used Guantánamo to try to create a legal black hole outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, two decades of litigation and multiple Supreme Court decisions have confirmed that people detained there are, in fact, entitled to rights under both the U.S. Constitution and international law, including the right to a lawyer. 

Erik Crew, Staff Attorney of Haitian Bridge Alliance, said, “The United States has used Guantánamo as part of its migrant-detention infrastructure ever since it learned from Haitians and Cubans fleeing persecution by boat in the 70’s that it was easier to get rid of them, without regard for protections afforded to them by law, if they were taken to Guantánamo versus U.S. soil—isolated and far from advocates, attorneys, courts, the media, family, and the public at large. HBA receives daily requests from people who want to understand whether they will be targeted by the administration’s new plans; what legal authority would justify it; and what legal processes could protect them and their families. They have a right to know this information, and it is essential organizations like HBA have access to it.” 

The U.S. government still detains 15 men in the post-9/11 military prison. Trump’s stated plan is to expand a separate facility, the Migrant Operations Center, which currently holds only a handful of asylum seekers, mainly from Haiti and Cuba, intercepted at sea. This area cannot at this point accommodate a large number of immigrants, and the administration is reportedly setting up tents to hold them. 

Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, said, “Exposing every last detail of the Trump administration’s plan to massively expand the immigration detention system at Guantánamo Bay is critical in the fight to free people from the facility immediately and to stop Trump’s cruel mass deportation plans. Alarmingly, the use of Guantánamo Bay ramps up a deepening trend of ICE detention metastasizing into other government agencies, including the Department of Defense by utilizing military bases and assets to detain people and expand deportation infrastructure. Expansion of ICE detention at Guantánamo is especially alarming given its remote location and the decades-long documented history of abuse and torture there, which will only be exacerbated by the well-documented abuse inherent to the ICE detention system, including abuse, unsanitary conditions, and medical neglect. In no uncertain terms – lives are in jeopardy at Guantánamo.” 

The detaining of migrants at Guantánamo involves multiple agencies. The rights groups directed their FOIA request to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Department of State, and the Department of Government Efficiency. 

The Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) also known as “The BRIDGE” is a 501(c)(3) grassroots nonprofit community organization that advocates for fair and humane immigration policies and provides migrants and immigrants with humanitarian, legal, and social services, with a particular focus on Black people, the Haitian community, women and girls, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and survivors of torture and other human rights abuses.

Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.