Rights groups demand end to asylum seeker detentions in Guantanamo

US cannot keep hiding its ‘mistreatment of asylum seekers by exiling them,’ says letter signed by 125 organisations.

Dozens of rights groups have urged the United States government to stop holding asylum seekers at a detention facility at its Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba, claiming its conditions are illegal and inhumane.

The coalition of 125 rights organisations, led by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) and Haitian Bridge Alliance, made their plea on Wednesday in an open letter to US President Joe Biden.

“We demand that your administration close the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center (MOC) and process asylum seekers encountered at sea in a manner consistent with US human rights obligations,” the letter stated.

“The US government cannot continue to hide its diversion and mistreatment of asylum seekers by exiling them to Guantanamo, out of reach of their families, advocates, public consciousness – and the law,” it added.

The groups also called on the US government to stop intercepting sea-bound migrants from Haiti and sending them back to “war-like” conditions in their country, a fate shared by hundreds of unaccompanied children between 2021 and 2023, according to a ProPublica investigation.

“All forced returns of people to Haiti, by air or by sea, must end now,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, which signed the open letter.

The US treatment of sea-travelling migrants, including interdicting them and keeping them in Guantanamo, has drawn new scrutiny following a report published in September by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP).

The report alleges asylum seekers are subjected to inadequate, “prison like conditions” in Guantanamo, where there is “little to no transparency or accountability”.

According to former MOC staff cited by the IRAP report, detained migrants are denied private calls and “punished” if they complain of mistreatment. Traumatised children are deprived of education or professional psychiatric treatment, they say.

The US State Department denied the report’s conclusions, telling the Miami Herald that the Guantanamo facility is “humanitarian” and that people inside it are not detained because “they can go to places like the base’s grocery store”.

A group of migrant people try to cross a barbed wire fence to reach the US side, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on March 20, 2024. [Herika MARTINEZ / AFP]

‘It should not be a death sentence’

Immigration and border security have become hot-button issues leading into the November 5 elections, with both presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris pressing for more border checks and deportations.

While immigration rose to record levels under the tenure of US President Joe Biden – an issue seized on by Trump – the Biden administration introduced new asylum restrictions over the summer, causing irregular crossings from Mexico to drop to their lowest levels in years.

Border death rise

Migrants trying to cross by foot into the US face a deadlier journey than ever before, according to The Associated Press.

In the last year, 10 times more migrants died trekking into New Mexico than in the previous three years, AP reported, citing data from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. Smugglers often lead migrants into rugged terrain in extreme temperatures, contributing to the rise in deaths.

“It should not be a death sentence to come to the United States,” said Sheriff’s Major Jon Day, with New Mexico’s Dona Ana County, at a recent community gathering. “And when we push them into the desert areas here, they’re coming across and they’re dying.”