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laken riley act
Trump Plan for Migrant Prison Camp at Gitmo Should 'Horrify Us All'
"Guantánamo has long been a stain on America's human rights record. Using it to detain migrants would be a dangerous escalation of anti-immigrant policies," wrote one immigrant advocate.
Jan 31, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement Wednesday that he is ordering officials to prepare the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to house tens of thousands of migrants was met with swift condemnation from rights groups this week.
"Guantánamo has long been a stain on America's human rights record. Using it to detain migrants would be a dangerous escalation of anti-immigrant policies," wrote Guerline Jozef, executive director at Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrant advocacy group, in a statement on Friday.
Trump announced the plan during a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act, legislation that strips due process rights from millions of undocumented immigrants, saying, "we have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people."
A presidential action published by the White House that same day called on the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security "to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens." The memorandum did not state how many migrants are expected to be detained there.
Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, called the move a decision that "should horrify us all."
"The order... sends a clear message: migrants and asylum seekers are being cast as the new terrorist threat, deserving to be discarded in an island prison, removed from legal and social services and supports," Warren continued.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) said in a Thursday statement that he is "deeply troubled" by the plan, arguing that it raises "serious human rights concerns, risks significant abuses, and would impose unnecessary costs on taxpayers." Amnesty International has also decried the announcement.
Guantánamo Bay's military prison has become associated with the repression and violence carried out by the United States during the "War on Terror" that launched after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It has been used to hold hundreds of foreign terrorism suspects, many without charge, since it opened in 2002.
Facilities at Guantánamo Bay facilities have also been used to detain asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees for decades, but not in the manner that Trump is now suggesting.
Both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton processed Haitian refugees at Guantánamo Bay, but those were people taken into custody at sea, not brought from the U.S. mainland. And while the Biden administration last year considered processing Haitian migrants there as well, it never followed through with the policy.
Looking ahead, Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights also vowed to fight back, saying his group "has challenged the U.S. government's use of Guantánamo in all its incarnations, and we, along with our partners, will do so again."
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Trump Signs Sweeping Xenophobic Bill, Rescinding Due Process for Millions
"The Laken Riley Act capitalizes on a horrible tragedy in order to advance President Trump's anti-immigrant agenda by scapegoating people seeking safety," said one campaigner.
Jan 29, 2025
Human rights defenders decried U.S. President Donald Trump's signing of legislation Wednesday that critics warn will strip due process rights from millions of people while harming some of the most vulnerable members of society, including migrant children, victims of sexual violence, and survivors of domestic abuse.
Trump signed the Laken Riley Act—named after a young woman murdered last year by a Venezuelan man who, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), entered the United States illegally—calling it a "landmark law" that "will save countless innocent American lives."
"The Laken Riley Act is based upon false, xenophobic narratives that dehumanize and criminalize an entire group of people due to the actions of one person."
However, Amy Fischer, director of the ACLU's Refugee and Migrant Rights Program, said in a statement Wednesday that "the Laken Riley Act capitalizes on a horrible tragedy in order to advance President Trump's anti-immigrant agenda by scapegoating people seeking safety and stripping away their right to due process."
"This legislation mandates the arrest and detention of our undocumented neighbors for being convicted or charged of any theft, shoplifting, burglary, or larceny offense," Fischer noted. "Mandatory detention solely for being accused of theft strips people of their right to due process and constitutes arbitrary detention under international human rights law."
"The Laken Riley Act is based upon false, xenophobic narratives that dehumanize and criminalize an entire group of people due to the actions of one person," Fischer added. "It will separate families and make our communities less safe. It is simply unconscionable for Congress to create a new mechanism that gives people the power to falsely accuse immigrants of theft knowing their detention is mandatory."
As the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area, which called the law "shameful and unconstitutional," noted Wednesday: "This bill does not require a conviction—simply being accused of a crime is enough to force individuals into mandatory detention without review by any judge. In doing so, the law strips due process protections and allows for discrimination against vulnerable immigrant communities."
The group continued:
The federal government already has the power to detain and deport individuals who commit criminal acts. But in our legal system, judges act as a constitutionally required check on police actions. This new law removes that check. It is a direct attack on the constitutional rights of immigrants and communities of color, and it erodes the civil liberties of American society at large. It will incentivize racial profiling and divert law enforcement resources away from real threats, making our communities less safe.
"Lawyers' Committee and our partners vow to challenge this unconstitutional law in court," Bianca Sierra Wolff, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "We will not stand by while the rights of immigrants and communities of color are trampled for political gain."
Writing for Common Dreams Wednesday, National Center for Youth Law senior director Neha Desai and NCYL attorney Melissa Adamson lamented the Laken Riley Act's passage and urged Congress, both chambers of which passed the law with bipartisan support, to "do the right thing" by introducing "new legislation to protect children from this draconian law."
"Policymakers on both sides of the political aisle seem all too eager to support legislation that ignores that immigrant children are human beings, worthy of the same care and protections that their own children enjoy," Desai and Adamson contended. "It is deeply disheartening to see lawmakers shift with the political winds rather than hold true to fundamental values. Congress must not acquiesce to a country in which the rejection of children's rights is the norm."
Shares in private prison companies have skyrocketed since Trump won last November's election, partly in anticipation of a boom in business due to the Laken Riley Act and the broader campaign of mass deportations now underway.
On Wednesday, Trump also said he would instruct the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to prepare a detention facility—some critics called it a "concentration camp"—capable of holding 30,000 migrants at the notorious offshore Guantánamo Bay prison run by the U.S. military in Cuba.
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The Laken Riley Act Harms Immigrant Children, And It’s Only the Beginning
Policymakers on both sides of the political aisle seem all too eager to support legislation that ignores that immigrant children are human beings, worthy of the same care and protections that their own children enjoy.
Jan 29, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is about to sign legislation so sweeping and reckless that it could force a kindergartener merely charged with stealing a lollipop into indefinite detention at a federal immigration facility.
With bipartisan support, lawmakers have pushed through the Laken Riley Act, which expands the categories of offenses that require mandatory federal immigration detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to include minor theft-related crimes, such as shoplifting—without exempting children. This bill doesn’t even require a child to be charged or convicted of a crime before being indefinitely imprisoned.
It has no minimum age limit, so anyone old enough to commit shoplifting or other property crimes would be treated the same as adults under this bill. Twenty-four states have no minimum age for prosecuting children, meaning that, in certain states, even a five-year-old could be imprisoned under this extreme legislation.
It’s not too late for Congress to do the right thing and introduce new legislation to protect children from this draconian law. A course correction is urgently needed.
Congress quickly pushed through this far-reaching legislation and bypassed the traditional process which requires thoughtful discussion and debate. Sixty-four senators and 263 representatives voted for this short-sighted act, and untold children across the country will suffer because of it. Did those who voted for it realize that the Laken Riley Act is so extreme it applies to children, without exception; will lead to thousands of children being detained; raises profound due process questions; and will separate thousands of parents from their children?
For 30 years, we at the National Center for Youth Law have served as co-counsel on the landmark Flores case, which establishes minimum protections for children detained in federal immigration custody. We’ve interviewed hundreds of children in federal immigration facilities, and we have seen detention—even brief detention—cause significant mental and physical harm. Under the Laken Riley Act, children could be held indefinitely—for months or even years—in juvenile detention facilities that have historically been the site of abuse and neglect.
It’s not too late for Congress to do the right thing and introduce new legislation to protect children from this draconian law. A course correction is urgently needed.
But the Laken Riley Act is just the beginning. Immigrant children and youth are already under direct attack by an onslaught of executive orders and government actions that threaten their safety, health, and future.
Recent executive orders purport to end constitutionally-protected birthright citizenship, close the border to children and families seeking asylum, and indefinitely suspend all refugee admissions—including refugee children. Immigration enforcement policies that have been in place since 2011 have been eliminated, undermining the safety of children and families attending school, seeking medical care, and praying in churches. Coordinated raids are already tearing families apart and striking fear in immigrant communities. There are even promises to reopen family detention centers and end longstanding protections for detained children.
Policymakers on both sides of the political aisle seem all too eager to support legislation that ignores that immigrant children are human beings, worthy of the same care and protections that their own children enjoy. It is deeply disheartening to see lawmakers shift with the political winds rather than hold true to fundamental values.
Congress must not acquiesce to a country in which the rejection of children’s rights is the norm. Although the political voices for the humane treatment of immigrant children have fallen largely silent, a handful of steadfast champions remain. We applaud the congressmembers that continue to stand up for these children’s rights. We are hopeful that their colleagues will regain their moral compass to guide them as we navigate continuous assaults on children in the months and years ahead.
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