The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week against the Trump administration, misleading and downplaying the “high-threat” status of illegal aliens detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
On Wednesday, the ACLU issued a press release announcing that it filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of several immigrant advocacy groups. Eucaris Carolina Gomez Lugo, the sister of one detainee, also joined in the lawsuit. Her brother is accused of being a member of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Other family members of the detainees are also part of the legal action.
‘They should change their name.’
The ACLU stated that the lawsuit aimed to allow the immigrant advocacy groups “to meet with the people being detained in order to provide them with legal assistance.” It claimed that the Trump administration had “hurr[ied] immigrants off to a remote island cut off from lawyers, family, and the rest of the world.”
The lawsuit estimated that the administration has detained more than 50 illegal aliens at GITMO since February 4. It accused the administration of attempting to “thwart access to counsel for immigrant detainees.”
“For the first time in U.S. history, the federal government has moved noncitizens apprehended and detained in the United States on civil immigration charges to the Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” it read. “And it is holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family, or the outside world.”
However, according to a press release from the Department of Defense, those recently detained at GITMO are “high-priority criminal aliens.” The DOD referred to the individuals as “high-threat,” noting that they are “currently being housed in vacant detention facilities.”
Further, the lawsuit’s use of the phrase “for the first time in U.S. history” is similarly misleading. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also authorized detaining illegal aliens at GITMO.
In response to the lawsuit, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security not only denied the ACLU’s claims but also sharply criticized the organization.
A DHS official told the New York Post, “There is a system for phone utilization to reach lawyers.”
According to the DHS, detainees do have the ability to contact legal representation.
“If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murderers & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name,” the DHS official remarked.
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