The Trump administration is getting ready to send as many as 9,000 undocumented immigrants to Guantanamo Bay, a detention site that has long been criticized for inhumane conditions, according to reports from Politico and The Washington Post.
The federal government had previously detained suspected terrorists at Guantanamo after the Sept. 11 attacks and faced intense scrutiny for the poor treatment of the people held there. It also used a separate facility for immigrant detention, CNN reports — that facility has also been condemned for its own civil rights abuses.
About 500 immigrants have been held at Guantanamo for varying periods of time since February, according to Politico — a figure the administration is reportedly looking to grow because it’s running out of detention space domestically.
The administration’s reported actions come after it quietly returned immigrants from Guantanamo to facilities in the U.S. earlier this year while staring down a civil lawsuit contesting its ability to send people there.
A federal judge has since ruled against immigration advocates trying to bar future transfers to Guantanamo, though he’s signaled he was open to revisiting the issue if the facility was being used again for new detainees. The administration’s reported decision to reconsider use of the facility is also taking place as immigrant enforcement has become a flashpoint and White House officials have urged aggressive action to promote deportations.
