top of page

Immigrants are not terrorists: Guantánamo Bay policy must be stopped

Writer's picture: Voces Unidas Action FundVoces Unidas Action Fund

Donald Trump’s recent executive order directing immigration authorities to use the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba to house deported migrants stirs grave concerns over the potential to add another dark chapter to U.S. history.

 

The order signed Wednesday along with the equally disconcerting Laken Riley Act legislation recently passed by Congress opens the detention center infamous for accusations of torture and abuse to house up to 30,000 immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. While the Trump administration has said it is focused on detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants with “criminal records,” the Laken Riley Act enables federal authorities to detain and deport immigrants for merely being accused of crimes as petty as shoplifting.

 

What’s more, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently stated that this administration sees all undocumented immigrants as “criminals” and isn’t just seeking to deport those who commit violent acts. To be clear, living in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant is a civil violation, not a criminal offense, and those detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) away from the U.S.-Mexico border have a right to a hearing with an immigration judge to determine if they can stay in the U.S. or not.

 

However, a backlog of 3.7 million cases in immigration courts, where immigrants are entitled to make their case to stay in the country, means detained immigrants could wait months, if not years, for their hearing. And now, it appears that tens of thousands of those immigrants could be forced to await their hearings in the terrorist prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.


Already the Trump administration has stepped outside the boundaries of the law in its ruthless attempts to label all undocumented immigrants "criminals" as an excuse to separate families and go after non-violent immigrants more accurately described as victims of racial prejudice, hysteria, and failed political leadership. Not only have study after study demonstrated that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens, but the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. have no criminal backgrounds, predominantly earning a living as agricultural, construction and service workers.


Trump’s flawed deportation initiative already comes at a tremendous cost to the U.S. economy, with the nation’s GDP predicted to drop by as much as 7.4% over the next three years – never mind the hundreds of billions in direct costs associated with deporting up to 11 million people. But the societal damage of casting immigrants and asylum seekers as the new terrorist threat to be discarded in an island prison and stripped of fundamental legal and social services is incalculable. 


Voces Unidas rejects these draconian and vile policies and will remain steadfast in our commitment to see them stopped.


88 views
bottom of page