Oppose the Plan to Send Migrants to Guantanamo Bay

I oppose the Trump administration's plan to send undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo is for enemy combatants, not for undocumented migrants. Trump’s policy raises humanitarian, financial, and legal concerns. I urge you to oppose this cruel and costly policy. The administration is vetting at least 9,000 people for transfer, an exponential increase from the roughly 500 migrants already held there since February, with a stated long-term goal of housing as many as 30,000 migrants. The official reason is to free up bed space at domestic detention facilities. But using Guantanamo also is to terrify undocumented migrants. State Department officials have said the message is "to shock and horrify people", and ACLU attorneys argue it's meant to "frighten immigrants, deter future migration, induce self-deportation, and coerce people in detention to give up claims against removal and accept deportation elsewhere". Guantanamo Bay has a grim history, having long housed terrorism suspects. Immigrant detainees currently held there reportedly face punitive conditions, including insufficient food, only weekly changes of clothes, and rodent infestation. The cost is exorbitant, estimated at $100,000 per day for each detainee. Pentagon officials have expressed shock at the scale of the plan, worrying about tropical weather challenges, limited staff, and access to medical treatment for migrants. Even some U.S. diplomats are alarmed, especially by plans to transfer European citizens, noting that most are allies cooperative in taking back deportees, making the use of Guantanamo unnecessary for them. There is also a federal class-action lawsuit pending that argues the government has identified no legitimate purpose for holding immigrant detainees at Guantanamo, rather than at facilities inside the United States. Please advocate for the administration to abandon these plans and instead focus on humane and lawful alternatives for managing immigration.