US lawmakers demand permanent closure of Guantanamo detention facility

WASHINGTON

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib led 15 members of Congress in a letter to the Trump administration Monday, demanding the permanent closure of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We write to express our outrage at the ongoing and recently proposed expansion of detention of immigrants at Guantanamo Bay," the lawmaker wrote in the letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The letter followed recent reports which said the Trump administration is planning to send up to 9,000 undocumented migrants to Guantanamo. The move is part of the president's crackdown on illegal immigration with a push for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids to net more arrests and deportations of undocumented migrants.

Stressing that for over two decades, Guantanamo Bay has been "synonymous with injustice, torture, and Islamophobia," the lawmakers said that President Donald Trump’s decision to hold thousands of immigrants in a facility "notorious for human rights abuses is morally abhorrent and unlawful."

"As long as the United States maintains a detention facility at Guantanamo, future administrations will continue to use it to try and deprive non-citizens of meaningful access to the courts and the full protections of U.S. and international law.

"We call on the administration to immediately halt the use of Guantanamo for migrant detention, close the detention facilities for good, and ensure that all detained individuals are treated with dignity, due process, and the protections guaranteed under both U.S. and international law," the letter concluded.

Guantanamo Bay's notorious history dates back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, where a large number of suspected terrorists were sent after being captured by the US military.

Trump announced in January that he planned to use the detention facility to transfer undocumented migrants.