Obama Administration Misses Deadline To Close Guantánamo
ACLU Urges Closure Of Prison And End To Indefinite Detention
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
NEW YORK – The Obama administration missed the deadline today to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay. On his second full day in office, President Obama signed an executive order to close the prison within a year. Today, the date that the prison was to have been closed, the facility remains open.
According to news reports today, the administration has decided to continue to detain without trial nearly 50 of the 198 Guantánamo prisoners because a presidential task force concluded that "they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release." The American Civil Liberties Union disputes that any significant category of such detainees exists, and renews its call for the closure of the prison and an end to the illegal policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial.
The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU:
"An important deadline was missed today. One of the most shameful chapters of American history was to have been brought to a close with the shuttering of the prison at Guantánamo Bay. Sadly, the prison remains open. While the administration has encountered both external and self-imposed obstacles to closing the facility, it is critical that it not give in to a sense of inertia and that the prison be shut down as soon as possible.
"But just as important as closing the prison quickly is closing it right, and that means putting an end to the illegal policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial. While the administration should transfer prisoners to the U.S. for federal court trials, it should not create a 'Gitmo North' by bringing them to facilities in the U.S. or anywhere else to be illegally held without due process. This practice was wrong in Cuba and would remain so here, reducing the closure of Guantánamo to a symbolic gesture.
"If the U.S. is to truly move forward and regain its moral footing, the administration must ensure that the shameful policies of the past are never repeated, on U.S. soil or elsewhere. It would be an error of historic proportions to miss this crucial window of opportunity for turning the page on the tragic policies of the past."
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project:
"The Obama administration continues to insist that there is a substantial number of Guantánamo prisoners who are simultaneously too dangerous to release and too difficult to prosecute, but if there is credible evidence that these prisoners are dangerous, there is no reason why that evidence could not be introduced against them in criminal trials. The criminal laws, and the material support laws in particular, are broad enough to reach anyone who presents a serious threat, and the federal courts are fully capable of affording defendants fair trials while protecting the government's legitimate interest in protecting information that is properly classified.
"It's worth asking what the Obama administration really means when it proposes that prisoners are 'too difficult to prosecute.' In at least some of these cases, the concern seems to be that the government's evidence has been 'tainted' by interrogators' use of methods that constitute cruel treatment or torture under domestic and international law. But that kind of 'evidence' is not evidence at all. Our justice system excludes coerced evidence not only because coercion and torture are illegal, but because coerced evidence is unreliable. If evidence is too unreliable to justify detention after criminal trial, it is certainly too unreliable to justify indefinite detention without trial."
The ACLU unveiled a new Web site today focusing on indefinite detention, and the need to either charge or release detainees that are not properly held under the laws of war. The Web site includes news and documents related to indefinite detention, as well as videos featuring former Guantánamo detainees speaking about their experience.
The ACLU's new online resource on indefinite detention can be viewed at: www.aclu.org/indefinitedetention
Learn More About the Issues in This Press Release
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.