February 20, 2025
Peaceful Tomorrows Statement on Deportation of Migrants to Guantanamo
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is an organization of 9/11 family members acutely aware of the legal purgatory and morass known collectively as ‘Guantanamo’. Following the transfer of detainees from around the world in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, novel legal proceedings constructed at Guantanamo have frustrated our attempts to obtain justice and accountability for the crimes committed on September 11th for over 23 years.
The Trump Administration is now replicating a costly, risky and unnecessary practice by disappearing migrants from American soil to legal limbo at Guantanamo. This continues the legacy of eroding the Rule of Law – both at Guantanamo and within the continental United States.
The reasons to send any human being to Guantanamo are clear: to deny unalienable rights, keep a person incommunicado, instill fear, and to thwart an established system of legal processes here on the mainland United States. Guantanamo is a resource for the weak and cowardly.
For an Administration whose stated goal is government efficiency, flying migrants to Guantanamo and setting up a whole new shadow prison for 30,000 people is an abominable waste of taxpayer dollars. It already costs taxpayers more than half a Billion dollars per year to imprison fifteen long term detainees. Imprisoning thousands of migrants at Guantanamo will come at enormous cost.
Further, the language of fear has been echoing in the camps at Guantanamo and the courtrooms and newsrooms in America for decades. From “the worst of the worst” in 2002, to “detain the worst criminal aliens threatening the American people,” in 2025. Over 750 of those original “worst of the worst” were released from Guantanamo having never been charged with any wrongdoing. Moving migrants into a proven failed process is an egregious mistake.
For the reasons above, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows condemns the transfer of migrants from U.S. soil to Guantanamo. We call on the current Administration to halt this practice, and work with the U.S. Congress on humane and just migration policy.
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