What Records Tell Us About How ICE Is Using Guantánamo

In January, Trump announced his intent to re-open and expand the use of the detention center in Guantánamo Bay for immigration enforcement. The first round of transfers in February drew widespread condemnation after detainees reported harsh conditions and limited access to lawyers. In June, despite bipartisan concern and an immense cost — estimated at $100,000 per detainee per day — the administration ramped the operation back up. Since February, the administration has held more than 700 migrants at Guantánamo.

In April, we submitted Freedom of Information Act requests seeking records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and military officials. In June, we filed a lawsuit for these records after the government agencies failed to respond to our requests.

This month, ICE sent us 84 pages of documents that include ICE contractors’ shift reports, texts from ICE leadership, updates on a chaplain’s program, and official policies shaping people’s detention. Today, the New York Times published a story based on these records that highlights how the administration rushed to set up the detention program this spring. The records show “no plan, no foresight and no concern for the human cost of its own chaos,” our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu told the Times.

Here’s what else we learned from the documents.

Most of the people detained at Guantánamo were considered a low risk to public safety. 

As many as 90 percent of the detainees held at Guantánamo were considered a “low risk” to public safety, according to a chaplain’s report reflecting conditions from March 26 to April 25. By the end of this period, the chaplain noted that “this distribution has now shifted to nearly an even 50/50 split between low- and high-risk classifications.”

The records include weekly population counts that indicate an average of 40 people were held at Guántanamo from June to July. These people were held at Leeward Point and Windward Point, two locations separated by a ferry ride. The Windward facility houses detainees in individual rooms across eight pods. Leeward Point, also referred to as Camp 6, detains people in barracks with five to six bunks in each room. The building was initially built for al-Qaeda suspects.

People detained at Guantánamo protested their confinement and/or conditions. 

The records show people have been suspected of holding individual and collaborative protests in detention. Shift reports from a contractor working with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) reveal that the contractor participated in “de-escalation of potential pod wide hunger strike/ potential riot” on July 8. The next week, the contractor met with the supervisory detention and deportation officer as well as medical and mental health staff to “discuss issues regarding potential hunger strike.”

The contractor’s shift reports paint a bleak picture of the situation inside. From April to July, the reports contain three instances of detainees on suicide watch and note an individual was placed in solitary confinement for “camara obstruction and fork possession.” 

According to an ICE policy document, detainees are only guaranteed one hour outside five days per week. However, that time can be revoked as punishment for as long as two weeks without requiring higher approval.

ICE was unprepared to house detainees at Guantánamo.

A chaplain noted that “there were some bureaucratic hiccups, including both arriving and departing the Island. This is to be expected with any startup.” 

It appears that military personnel at Guantánamo may not have been properly trained to interact with detainees. “There is a DOD ask to provide 40-hour training to GTMO staff who will have daily interaction with ICE detainees at GTMO,” wrote ERO’s acting assistant director of field operations. The official touted a virtual training with a quiz “accomplished through SharePoint” as a “great template for us to at least have handy if we are pushed to do so.” The records do not indicate if this training was provided. 

It also seems that ICE scrambled to create a phone policy just days before groups sued over detainees’ inadequate access to legal representation. On February 10, ICE’s deputy chief of staff emailed several ICE officials: “Gents, I have a follow-up question about phone calls. I have looked…and I don’t find details about it.” While the details of the subsequent discussion are almost entirely redacted, the officers were instructed to “Start categorizing these in case there is a final document that we could place these standards into.”

It appears ICE may have created an official policy after this discussion. We obtained an undated “Telephone Access – GTMO” policy that individuals are permitted to contact legal representation as frequently as they wish at no cost. Facilities must have at least one telephone for every 25 detainees. If requested, ICE is required to make “special arrangements permitting the detainee to speak by telephone with an immediate family member detained in another facility.”

Guantánamo’s religious program suggests they may have been preparing to detain more people.

An April progress report noted that 100 percent of the detainees were Latine Spanish speakers, and 55 percent identified as Catholic. But it seemed that was anticipated to change, as the chaplain prepared religious materials for “Hinduism, Sikhism, and Rastafarianism to support [detainees] from regions such as Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and India.”