White House defends inhumane treatment of migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay: ‘It’s a promise the president campaigned on’

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The White House is responding to reports that deported migrants who were detained at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay received inhumane treatment by citing the deportees’ alleged criminal records without denying that harsh methods were used against them. During a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about reporting in the Washington Post that describes conditions at the U.S. base’s detention facility. Last week, the Trump administration appeared to have stopped using the American naval base to hold deported migrants after the Department of Justice said in a court filing that there were “no immigration detainees” there. That lawsuit from the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights, among others, argued that detainees have “effectively disappeared into a black box and cannot contact or communicate with their family or attorneys.” The Justice Department wrote in a response that “completion of the removal operation eliminates any need for temporary injunctive relief” and stressed that the base was “intended for temporary staging and not for indefinite detention.” Government attorneys have also argued that detainees at Guantanamo don’t need to be afforded the same right to counsel as criminal defendants because they “do not have the same due process protections” and lack “a statutory right to counsel” because they are being deported from the U.S. open image in gallery Last week, the Trump administration appeared to have stopped using the American naval base to hold deported migrants after the Department of Justice said in a court filing that there were “no immigration detainees” there Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly defended use of the facility — which opened in 2002 to hold terrorism suspects during the War on Terror — to jail suspected Tren de Aragua gang members and “the worst of the worst and illegal criminals,” according to Noem.