Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration on Wednesday to gain access to detained migrants who they say have been flown to Guantanamo Bay and held there without being able to consult lawyers or speak to relatives, the Associated Press reports. The federal lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., and backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and several advocacy groups, claims that this is the first time in U.S. history that the government has detained non-citizens on civil immigration charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. “And it is holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family, or the outside world,” says the lawsuit, which describes the more than 50 detained migrants who were transferred there this month and “effectively disappeared into a black box." Isolation is part of a larger plan, as the legal filings describe it: "Guantanamo is home to one of the most notorious prisons in the world, used when the U.S. government has attempted to operate in secret, without legal constraint or accountability.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys are seeking a court order allowing them to meet with the detainees. They also want an order requiring officials to provide the location of a detainee within 24 hours of their transfer to Guantanamo. The first U.S. military flight deporting migrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo landed in Cuba on Feb. 4, according to a U.S. official. It was the first step in an expected surge in the number of migrants sent to the U.S. base. President Donald Trump has said Guantanamo has the capacity to hold as many as 30,000 people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was assigned to Guantanamo when he was on active duty, has called it a “perfect place” to house migrants. The lawsuit is filed against the Defense Department, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and their respective department secretaries. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its acting director also are named as defendants.
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