Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday strongly urged the US to immediately stop transferring immigrant detainees to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, warning that they face “abusive and inhumane detention conditions” that may amount to ill-treatment.
According to interviews conducted by HRW of immigrants formerly held at the facility, US officials did not inform them that they were being taken to Guantánamo. They reported that they were kept incommunicado in unsanitary conditions with no explanation of their legal status, and without any notification to their families. Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The US government has taken immigrants to Guantánamo and subjected them to incommunicado detention in appalling conditions… No immigrant or asylum seeker who leaves their country in search of protection should be taken to a place like this.”
In late January 2025, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum to expand the “Migrants Operations Center” (GMOC) at Guantánamo, aiming to house up to 30,000 immigrants deemed the “worst criminal illegal aliens.” Amnesty International condemned the plan, citing Guantánamo’s notoriety for human rights abuses.
In February 2025, nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants were transported to Guantánamo Bay. Court documents indicate that 127 were held in a high-security area (Camp 6), while 51 were placed in low-security tent facilities. The majority, 177 of the nearly 200 detainees, were deported to Venezuela after being flown to Honduras.
Several civil rights lawsuits challenged the transfers to Guantánamo. In March 2025, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), CCR (Center for Constitutional Rights), and IRAP (International Refugee Assistance Project) filed Espinoza Escalona v. Noem to block further transfers and secure legal access for detainees. A second case, Gutierrez v. Noem followed in June 2025.
According to Amnesty International, “Guantánamo Bay detention centre is a symbol of torture, rendition and indefinite detention without charge or trial.” Amid the post-9/11 “war on terror,” the facility was used to hold people perceived to be “enemy combatants”—intentionally chosen as an offshore location where US legal protections do not apply. In its report entitled “Guantánamo Bay: decades of injustice,” Amnesty said: “The facilities at Guantánamo have become emblematic of the gross human rights abuses and torture perpetrated by the US government in the name of counterterrorism.”
International law, including the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol, as well as the principle of non-refoulement, prohibit returning individuals to territories where their safety or freedom may be at risk. While the US has legal frameworks like the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) granting asylum protections, HRW argues that these standards have been severely compromised by opaque procedures and extraterritorial detention at Guantánamo.
HRW is calling on the US government to halt all current and future transfers of migrants to Guantánamo, ensure detainees in Guantánamo receive due process and meaningful access to legal counsel, and respect international human rights norms obligating transparency and protection of asylum seekers.
