Detained, Dehumanized, Forgotten: The Endless Cycle of Guantánamo

Twenty-three years have passed, yet the early weeks of Donald Trump’s second administration felt like a return to 2002. On January 29, 2025, the former reality star-turned-president signed an executive order to expand detention facilities at Guantánamo bay, allowing it to detain up to 30,000 migrants. Trump characterized these undocumented migrants as “the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.” His Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described them as “the worst of the worst,” echoing the rhetoric of the Bush administration and early 2000s politicians. As the US launched the “War on Terror” in 2001, government officials, including then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, used such dehumanizing rhetoric to justify the imprisonment of hundreds of Muslim boys and men at the military prison—many of whom were held without charge or trial.

The Islamophobic narrative around Guantánamo during the early days of the US-led “War on Terror” served a clear purpose: to strip detainees of the protections guaranteed under US law and international law. By labeling the nearly 800 Muslim boys and men who were detained at Guantánamo “terrorists” and “unlawful enemy combatants” (15 remain today), the US government justified their indefinite detention and torture. The use of phrases like “the worst of the worst” became a rhetorical shield, allowing the government to silence objections and avoid scrutiny.

Much of the discourse surrounding those imprisoned at Guantánamo in the early 2000s was deliberately dehumanizing. In a 2002 press conference, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed these individuals would “chew through the hydraulic brake cables of a jet to try to bring it down if not restrained in transportation.” By portraying the detainees as dangerous predators determined to kill Americans, the government justified torture and the inhumane treatment of prisoners under the pretext of ensuring the safety and security of American citizens.

Today, the Trump administration is employing similar tactics. In addition to “the worst of the worst,” DHS has described detained migrants as “highly dangerous,” while President Trump has claimed, “They are so bad, we don’t even trust their countries to hold them.” On the evening of February 4, 2025, the first flight carrying these so-called “high-threat” migrants arrived at the base.

One key reason as to why multiple administrations have chosen Guantánamo as a site to house and detain individuals as they argue individuals there are not subject to the protections  guaranteed under US law. The location has an uncertain legal status, and the government has claimed that individuals held there are not entitled to rights guaranteed under American laws. As Hannah Flamm, the interim senior policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), told PolitFact, “The U.S. government intentionally uses Guantánamo in hopes of avoiding oversight and the public eye, which makes the facility ripe for abuse.” Trump even acknowledged the near-impossibility of leaving Guantánamo, noting that it’s “a tough place to get out of.” This is precisely why multiple administrations have time and time again chosen the site to detain and imprison people, largely without charge or trial. As Naureen Shah of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently warned, “history suggests that such a move could enable the government to commit human rights abuses and inflict serious neglect on people detained there, far from lawyers, the media and congressional oversight.”

Beyond the resurgence of discriminatory and dehumanizing rhetoric, rights organizations are raising alarms over the potential legal and human rights violations at the notorious facility.  One of the most immediate concerns is the absence of an exit strategy—an issue that has plagued Guantánamo since its establishment in 2002. The prison was created without a clear plan for what would happen to the hundreds of individuals detained there. Given, there is little oversight and media coverage of the inner workings of Guantánamo, there are real fears that rights violations will occur again, specifically torture. A source familiar with the Trump administration’s plans regarding Guantánamo told CNN that “questions like how long the migrants can legally be held there, and what their rights would be while detained, are still unanswered. It is also unclear whether the migrants will have any access to legal or social services while detained at the base.”

During the “War on Terror,” nearly 800 Musim boys and men were imprisoned at Guantánamo and labelled “enemy combatants.” The Bush administration argued that these individuals were not entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions, particularly regarding their detention and treatment. In an effort to secure legal convictions, the government created an entirely new court system specifically to prosecute Guantánamo detainees. As The Bridge Initiative has previously noted, the military commission system established for the prisoners at Guantánamo “lacks many of the legal protections and rights the federal court system provides, including trial by jury, protection from self-incrimination, protection from coerced testimony, the right to a speedy trial, and the prohibition of  hearsay evidence.” Additionally, long-standing disputes persist over what evidence should be deemed inadmissible due to its connection to torture. 

The military commission trials have also been widely criticized by organizations like Human Rights Watch and members of the American Bar Association. More than two decades later, only seven individuals at Guantánamo have been convicted—five of whom pleaded guilty in pre-trial agreements in exchange for the possibility of release. This means that out of 780 individuals imprisoned there, 99.1% were never convicted of a crime. 

The military prison at Guantánamo, described by journalist Jonathan M. Katz as “the mythic symbol of the United States’s lawless power,” is also intrinsically tied to Islamophobia. The prevalence and normalization of anti-Muslim racism in the early 21st century provided the justification for the facility’s creation post-9/11. The government described the Muslim boys and men as “extremists,” “terrorists” and highly dangerous individuals who’s Muslimness was the source of the danger. As Dr. Maha Hilal wrote earlier this year, “the use of animalistic metaphors and demonising narratives in Guantánamo’s early days was critical to constructing an image of the Muslim enemy that would continue to provide the rationale for sidestepping legal norms and casting the men outside of the law.”  

Currently, 15 Muslim men remain imprisoned at Guantánamo, despite repeated calls from human rights groups and UN experts to shut it down. As CAGE International, a human rights group who has represented several individuals illegally imprisoned at Guantánamo, stated, “the enabling and impunity of the US’s War on Terror abuses have paved the way for Trump to now expand rather than abolish Guantanamo!”

President Trump’s decision to send migrants to the base in Cuba is not without precedent. In the 1990s, under Attorney General William Barr (who later served in Trump’s first administration), President George H.W. Bush’s administration sent Haitian refugees fleeing a coup d’état to Guantánamo. At its peak, the camp held around twelve thousand refugees. Harold Hongju Koh, Yale University law professor and former senior State Department official, led a team of Yale students and human rights lawyers in challenging the Haitians’ detention, ultimately securing the release of about 250 people into the United States. Now as President Trump moves to reestablish an immigrant detention center at Guantánamo, Koh has called the initiative “insane,” emphasizing that “This has been a consistent pattern over and over again. Shortsighted policymakers think they found a solution, and they have ended up creating a problem for which they have no exit strategy. That’s exactly what they’re doing again.”

For former Guantánamo detainees, President Trump’s decision to establish a migrant detention facility at the base reopens old wounds. In a personal reflection for the Guardian, Mansoor Adayfi, who was imprisoned at Guantánamo without charge for 14 years, described Trump’s move as “a painful reminder of the facility’s dark history – a history marked by torture, indefinite detention and systemic dehumanization.” He explained that the U.S. government justified the detention of nearly 800 Muslim boys and men by portraying them as “dangerous terrorists,” a narrative that enabled their imprisonment without charge or trial. Adayfi warns that today, “a similar narrative is being constructed,” as “Trump’s rhetoric of labeling undocumented immigrants as “the worst criminal illegal aliens” is a deliberate and dehumanizing tactic that opens the door to further abuses under the guise of national security.”

Twenty-three years later, the same dehumanizing and dangerous narrative of the “worst of the worst” has resurfaced. Twenty-three years later, the same disturbing spectacle of U.S. officials placing individuals in handcuffs and shackles onto planes is unfolding once again. Twenty-three years later, the orange jumpsuits have been replaced with gray tracksuits. 

A haunting reminder that Guantánamo—a site of egregious human rights violations and a legal black hole —remains a tool for leaders who disregard domestic law and international human rights in their pursuit of power, division, and control.