For 23 years at the Center for Victims of Torture, we’ve been calling for closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and for accountability for the United States’ use of torture. Not only is it still open, but today its role has been dusted off, amplified and broadcast onto the world stage in a move that seems designed to flaunt raw power and cruelty.

Guantánamo Bay is synonymous with torture. It is a symbol of injustice, Islamophobia and impunity. Since it opened in 2002, it has been a staggering example of the U.S. government’s disregard for due process and willingness to hold people without charge, forever. It represents the very worst aspects of the country’s reputation internationally and one of the darkest chapters of U.S. history: the country’s response to the September 11, 2001 attacks by creating a torture program and opening a secretive, off-shore detention facility.

Guantánamo Bay is synonymous with torture. It is a symbol of injustice, Islamophobia and impunity.”

The tireless efforts of many organizations and human rights activists over the years have succeeded in shrinking Guantánamo’s population, but not shutting its doors completely; 15 men still remain there. But now with Donald Trump in power, rather than making history by moving in a direction of justice, the Trump administration has instead decided to move hundreds of immigrants – not alleged terrorists, not alleged criminals, just immigrants – from the U.S. to Guantánamo, using it as a staging ground for further removal.

Then in addition the administration invoked a more than 200 year-old wartime law – the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – to render 238 Venezuelan immigrants to an equally notorious prison in El Salvador. Permanently.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has personally showcased the CECOT prison in El Salvador, with its Sector 8 designated as a “terrorism confinement center,” where the group of Venezuelans are being held. Amnesty International has reported that CECOT is overcrowded and rife with ill treatment, inhumane conditions and lack of medical care.

The centuries-old Alien Enemies Act allows for detention and removal of migrants only when there “is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.” The little justification offered by the president for its use is a claim that the Venezuelans sent to CECOT are members of a gang; however, the U.S. has not actually provided any such legitimate evidence. Several individuals in the prison have strongly disputed this allegation and are seeking legal recourse to be removed from the prison, but so far no one has been taken out regardless of any facts.

Using these two prisons is a performance that leverages the ugliest, most craven aspects of the United States’ reputation as torturers in order to intimidate and to vilify immigrants.”

The use of video footage of Secretary Noem overseeing the renditions of these people, who are filmed in prison garb and shackles being led off military planes, is clearly a public relations strategy designed to show how tough and ruthless the United States is. Using these two prisons is a performance that leverages the ugliest, most craven aspects of the United States’ reputation as torturers in order to intimidate and to vilify immigrants.

We don’t know all of the facts about all of the Venezuelans accused of being gang members. But we do know that one of them, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, had demonstrated a well-founded fear of persecution and was granted immigration relief in the U.S. in 2019. He was sent to CECOT anyway. We also know that the vast majority of people seeking asylum in the U.S. have never committed a crime.

But make no mistake: The financial cost of the Trump administration’s performative cruelty pales in comparison to the human cost.”

To date, the administration has wasted close to $40 million dollars of taxpayer money for the brute show of power on display in Guantánamo, and paid $6 million to El Salvador just to hold people at CECOT, which is in addition to the taxpayer costs of the detention and transport. People are being shuffled around like cargo, held in inhumane conditions without transparency, accountability or regard for human dignity.

But make no mistake: The financial cost of the Trump administration’s performative cruelty pales in comparison to the human cost.

About The Author

Yumna Rizvi is Senior Policy Analyst at CVT

Learn More