Washington, Feb 2 (UNB): Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 migrants including a Bangladeshi detained in the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
They also filed statements from men held there who said they were mistreated there in conditions that of one of them called "a living hell."
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, comes shortly after the same legal team sought access to migrants already held at the U.S. naval base. It is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Attorneys also submitted testimonies from individuals who had been detained at Guantanamo, describing harsh conditions. Detainees reported being confined in small, windowless cells with constant lighting that disrupted sleep. They also faced inadequate food, poor medical care, and verbal and physical abuse. Some detainees attempted suicide, while others were punished by being tied to chairs for hours or denied water.
"It was easy to lose the will to live," said Raul David Garcia, a former Guantanamo detainee sent back to Venezuela. "I had been kidnapped in Mexico before, and at least my captors there told me their names."
Another former detainee sent back to Venezuela, Jonathan Alejandro Alviares Armas, reported that fellow detainees were sometimes denied water or "tied up in a chair outside our cells for up to several hours" as punishment, including for protesting conditions.
"Guantanamo is a living hell," he said.
In another, separate federal lawsuit filed in New Mexico, a federal judge on Feb. 9 blocked the transfer of three immigrants from Venezuela being held in that state to Guantanamo Bay.
The 10 men involved in the latest lawsuit came to the U.S. in 2023 or 2024, seven from Venezuela, and the others from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The lawsuit said the Afghan and Pakistani migrants were fleeing threats from the Taliban, and two of the Venezuelans had been tortured by the government there for their political views.
One of the Venezuelans, Walter Estiver Salazar, said government officials kidnapped him after he refused to follow an order to cut off his town's electricity.
"The officials beat me, suffocated me, and eventually shot me," he said. "I barely survived."
