Washington: The American civil rights group American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s move to transfer 10 immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Venezuela to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
The men are currently being held in Texas, Arizona and Virginia. According to the ACLU, they are neither gang members nor dangerous criminals, yet they are being planned to be deported from the US and imprisoned in Guantanamo.
The lawsuit claims that detainees at Guantanamo are held in windowless rooms for up to 23 hours, are subjected to extremely humiliating strip searches, and are unable to contact their families.
It has also been revealed that Guantanamo guards subject prisoners to physical and mental torture, deprive them of water, torture them by tying them to chairs, and even break some of their bones. Many have even attempted suicide due to these extremely cruel conditions.
US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin called the legal challenge “baseless” and said that the government would defend the case together with the Department of Justice.
It should be noted that President Donald Trump has already announced a record number of illegal immigrants to be deported, and under this policy, the process of sending immigrants to the Guantanamo detention camp began in February.
Homeland Security Secretary Christine Lam claims that those sent to Guantanamo are “highly dangerous criminals”, but according to reports, about a third of the 177 Venezuelan prisoners sent in the first phase had no criminal record.
In February, a US court blocked the transfer of some Venezuelan migrants to Guantanamo, but they were later deported to Venezuela. According to the ACLU, the purpose of the case is to protect migrants from other countries from this inhumane treatment.
