by Vanguard Staff
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of civil rights organizations filed a sweeping federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s decision to detain immigrants at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
The complaint, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the District of Columbia, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the International Refugee Assistance Project, represents what the groups describe as an unprecedented and unlawful expansion of the federal government’s detention powers.
Filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the class-action suit seeks to end the practice and secure the release of individuals currently held at the base.
The plaintiffs in the case, Yamil Luna Gutierrez and Rafael Angel Lopez Ocon, are Nicaraguan nationals detained under civil immigration charges.
They were initially apprehended in the United States and held in immigration detention facilities in Virginia and Louisiana before being transported by military aircraft to Guantánamo Bay.
According to the complaint, the men are part of a larger class of noncitizens detained on U.S. soil and subsequently transferred to Guantánamo without any statutory authority or due process protections.
The groups contend that the federal government has no legal basis to detain civil immigration detainees outside U.S. territory under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Guantánamo Bay, for purposes of the statute, is not considered part of the United States, and the plaintiffs argue that the law does not permit the use of offshore military installations for civil immigration detention.
The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s actions represent a radical break with past practice. Although the federal government has historically used Guantánamo to hold individuals interdicted at sea—migrants who had never set foot on U.S. soil—this is the first time in the facility’s history that individuals already detained within the United States have been transferred to Guantánamo for immigration purposes.
The complaint states that over 500 people have been held at the base since the transfers began in early February, with some remaining there for weeks at a time under conditions the plaintiffs allege are punitive, abusive, and unconstitutional.
According to the lawsuit, many of the individuals transferred to Guantánamo are low-risk and have no criminal history beyond civil immigration violations.
Yet the Trump administration has characterized the detainees as dangerous criminals and gang members, repeatedly referring to them as “the worst of the worst.”
The complaint alleges that these claims have little evidentiary basis and that decisions about who is sent to Guantánamo are often made based on nationality or speculation, not on individualized assessments of threat or criminality.
A Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense revealed that the government’s criteria for transfer to Guantánamo include vague indicators such as being from a country where “a preponderance of aliens” are smuggled into the United States.
Conditions at Guantánamo are described in the complaint as significantly more severe than at any domestic immigration facility.
Plaintiffs report being held under military guard, denied in-person access to legal counsel, and subjected to daily mistreatment. Detention facilities include Camp 6, a maximum-security prison previously used to hold laws-of-war detainees, and the Migrant Operations Center, where individuals are housed in crowded barracks under heavy surveillance.
Detainees are granted as little as one hour of outdoor recreation per day, confined in spaces surrounded by armed guards and dogs, and subjected to invasive searches. They are denied access to religious materials, reading or writing tools, and even basic hygiene products, with some detainees allowed only a single bar of soap per week for showering, which must be returned after use.
The complaint alleges that these conditions are deliberately harsh and are intended not to serve a legitimate immigration purpose, but to instill fear in the broader immigrant community.
Plaintiffs cite multiple public statements by administration officials as evidence of this deterrence-based policy. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote on social media that she had observed immigrants being flown into Guantánamo and warned that those attempting to enter the U.S. would be “hunted down” and “locked up.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has publicly stated that Guantánamo “represents deterrence” and is central to the administration’s strategy of signaling a closed border.
President Trump himself said, “We don’t want them coming back… so we’re going to send them to Guantánamo. It’s a tough place to get out.”
These remarks, plaintiffs argue, reflect a deliberate effort to weaponize Guantánamo’s notorious reputation to discourage migration and pressure detainees to abandon legal challenges and accept deportation.
The financial cost of the Guantánamo detentions has also drawn criticism. According to figures cited in the lawsuit, the operation has cost taxpayers over $40 million—an estimated $100,000 per detainee per day. In comparison, the average cost of detaining a migrant at a facility within the United States is approximately $165 per day.
Despite these enormous expenditures, the government has admitted to flying many detainees back to domestic detention centers in order to facilitate their eventual removal, suggesting that the Guantánamo program has no logistical or operational benefit.
The legal complaint raises four central claims.
First, it asserts that the detentions violate the INA, which does not authorize the use of facilities outside U.S. territory for civil immigration detention.
Second, it argues that the transfers are arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, noting that the policy is exorbitantly expensive, operationally inefficient, and lacks any legitimate rationale.
Third, the plaintiffs allege that the conditions of confinement constitute punishment in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Finally, the complaint claims that the detainees’ rights to habeas corpus are being violated by holding them in a remote offshore facility with limited access to legal redress.
The plaintiffs are seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to stop further transfers to Guantánamo and to secure the release or relocation of all current detainees. They are also asking the court to vacate the administration’s policy authorizing the use of Guantánamo for immigration detention and to grant a writ of habeas corpus.
Civil rights attorneys say the case raises urgent constitutional questions about the limits of executive power, the militarization of immigration enforcement, and the return to practices that echo the darkest chapters of Guantánamo’s history.
“This is not about enforcing immigration law,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “It’s about sending a message of fear. But fear is not a lawful immigration strategy.”
