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Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
The legal issues raised by Trump sending the National Guard to L.A.
The Trump administration announced Saturday that National Guard troops were being sent to Los Angeles — an action Gov. Gavin Newsom said he opposed. President Trump is activating the Guard by using powers that have been invoked only rarely. Trump said in a memo to the Defense and Homeland Security departments that he was calling the National Guard into federal service under a provision called Title 10 to 'temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions.' Title 10 provides for activating National Guard troops for federal service. Such Title 10 orders can be used for deploying National Guard members in the United States or abroad. Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation's leading constitutional law scholars, said 'for the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling.' 'It is using the military domestically to stop dissent,' said Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. 'It certainly sends a message as to how this administration is going to respond to protests. It is very frightening to see this done.' Tom Homan, the Trump administration's 'border czar,' announced the plan to send the National Guard in an interview on Fox News on Saturday as protesters continued confronting immigration agents during raids. 'This is about enforcing the law,' Homan said. 'We're not going to apologize for doing it. We're stepping up.' 'We're already ahead of the game. We were already mobilizing,' he added. 'We're gonna bring the National Guard in tonight. We're gonna continue doing our job. We're gonna push back on these people.' Newsom criticized the federal action, saying that local law enforcement was already mobilized and that sending in troops was a move that was 'purposefully inflammatory' and would 'only escalate tensions.' The governor called the president and they spoke for about 40 minutes, according to the governor's office. Critics have raised concerns that Trump also might try to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to activate troops as part of his campaign to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants. The president has the authority under the Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard units of states to suppress 'any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy' that 'so hinders the execution of the laws' that any portion of the state's inhabitants are deprived of a constitutional right and state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect that right. The American Civil Liberties Union has warned that Trump's use of the military domestically would be misguided and dangerous. According to the ACLU, Title 10 activation of National Guard troops has historically been rare and Congress has prohibited troops deployed under the law from providing 'direct assistance' to civilian law enforcement — under both a separate provision of Title 10 as well as the Posse Comitatus Act. The Insurrection Act, however, is viewed as an exception to the prohibitions under the Posse Comitatus Act. In 1958, President Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to deploy troops to Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court's decision ending racial segregation in schools, and to defend Black students against a violent mob. Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, wrote in a recent article that if Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act 'to activate federalized troops for mass deportation — whether at the border or somewhere else in the country — it would be unprecedented, unnecessary, and wrong.' Chemerinsky said invoking the Insurrection Act and nationalizing a state's National Guard has been reserved for extreme circumstances where there are no other alternatives to maintain the peace. Chemerinsky said he feared that in this case the Trump administration was seeking 'to send a message to protesters of the willingness of the federal government to use federal troops to quell protests.' In 1992, California Gov. Pete Wilson requested that President George H.W. Bush use the National Guard to quell the unrest in Los Angeles after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That was under a different provision of federal law that allows the president to use military force in the United States. That provision applies if a state governor or legislature requests it. California politics editor Phil Willon contributed to this report.
Arab News
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Attorneys sue to keep 10 migrants, including Pakistani, out of Guantanamo Bay
Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 migrants detained in the US to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and filed statements from men held there who said they were mistreated there in conditions that of one of them called 'a living hell.' The federal lawsuit came less than a month after the same attorneys sued for access to migrants who were already detained at the naval base in Cuba after living in the US illegally. Both cases are backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in Washington. The attorneys also filed statements translated from Spanish into English from two men still held at Guantanamo Bay, four men held there in February and sent back to Venezuela, and a Venezuelan migrant sent back to Texas. The men said they were kept in small, windowless cells, with lights on around the clock, hindering sleep, and had inadequate food and medical care. One man reported attempting suicide there, and two said they knew of others' attempts. The men said migrants were verbally and physically abused by staffers. '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. Trump says Guantanamo Bay can hold thousands of 'the worst'. The White House and the Defense and Homeland Security departments did not immediately respond to emails Saturday seeking comment about the latest lawsuit. The two agencies are among the defendants. Trump has promised mass deportations of immigrants living in the US illegally and has said Guantanamo Bay, also known as 'Gitmo,' has space for up to 30,000 of them. He also has said he plans to send 'the worst' or high-risk 'criminal aliens' to the base in Cuba. The administration has not released specific information on who is being transferred, so it is not clear what crimes they are accused of committing in the US and whether they have been convicted in court, or merely been charged or arrested. At least 50 migrants have been transferred already to Guantanamo Bay, and the civil rights attorneys believe the number now may be about 200. They have said it is the first time in US history that the government has detained noncitizens on civil immigration charges there. For decades, the naval base was primarily used to detain foreigners associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A separate military detention center once held 800 people, but that number has dwindled to 15, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Critics have said for years that the center is notorious for poor conditions for detainees. A 2023 report from a United Nations inspector said detainees faced 'ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,' though the US rejected much of her criticism. Migrants say they were tortured or threatened before coming to the US The 10 men involved in the latest lawsuit came to the US 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.' Salazar said he had been convicted in the US of driving under the influence, 'which I deeply regret,' while another of the Venezuelans said charges against him tied to a domestic dispute had been dropped. The men's attorneys allege that many of the people who have been sent to Guantanamo Bay do not have serious criminal records or even any criminal history. Four Venezuelans said they had been falsely accused of being gang members based on their tattoos, including one who said his tattoo was of a Catholic rosary. Transfer to Guantanamo violates constitutional right, attorneys say. The latest lawsuit contends that the transfers violate the men's right to due legal process, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. The lawsuit also argues that federal immigration law bars the transfer of non-Cuban migrants from the US to Guantanamo Bay; that the US government has no authority to hold people outside its territory; and the naval base remains part of Cuba legally. The transfers are also described as arbitrary. Their first lawsuit, filed Feb. 12, said Guantanamo Bay detainees had 'effectively disappeared into a black box' and couldn't contact attorneys or family. The Department of Homeland Security said they could reach attorneys by phone. One of the formerly detained Venezuelans, Yoiker David Sequera, said he was permitted to make one phone call to the ACLU, but when he asked to speak with his family, he was told 'it was not possible.' A current detainee, Tilso Ramon Gomez Lugo, said that for two weeks he was not able to communicate 'with anyone in the outside world' until he was allowed to make a single call to attorneys. The lawsuit also argues that Guantanamo Bay 'does not have the infrastructure' to hold even the 10 men. Garcia said a part of the base for migrants like him known as Camp 6, where he was confined, seemed 'prepared at the last minute' and was 'not even finished.' 'It was freezing, and I felt like chicken trapped in an incubator,' he said.
Voice of America
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Voice of America
Trump says he will detain undocumented migrants at Guantanamo Bay
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would sign an executive action directing his administration to prepare to detain undocumented migrants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. detention facility is known mostly for housing military prisoners and terror suspects, including those involved in the 9/11 attacks and members of the Taliban. His order will instruct the Defense and Homeland Security departments to prepare the U.S. naval base to hold 30,000 migrants, Trump said. 'Some of them are so bad we don't even trust the countries to hold them because we don't want them coming back. So we're going to send them out to Guantanamo,' Trump added. 'This will double our capacity immediately. And tough, it's a tough place to get out of.' Trump made the announcement during a White House event during which he signed the Laken Riley Act into law. It was the first legislation he'd signed in his second term. The bill, named after a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered last year by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, aims to expand the federal government's mandate to detain immigrants who are in the country illegally. It's unclear how the administration proposes to do this. Asked by reporters, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this was something the White House was 'working on, to use resources that we currently have there at Guantanamo Bay.' 'We'll go through the process,' she said, adding that the administration was working with lawmakers to fund it. She offered no estimate of the cost. A White House official, speaking on background, a method often used by U.S. officials to remain anonymous, told VOA that Trump had signed a presidential memorandum regarding housing migrants at Guantanamo. Presidential memoranda are less formal than executive orders. For example, they do not have to be submitted to the Federal Register for publication. Late Wednesday, the White House published the executive memorandum. Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, said Wednesday that U.S. Coast Guard personnel already tasked to intercept illegal migrants at sea 'can take them straight to Guantanamo Bay.' Homan told reporters that migrants had been housed there before. 'So we're just going to expand upon the existing migrant center logistics to work for that,' he said. According to a September 2024 report from the International Refugee Assistance Project, the U.S. has for decades detained migrants intercepted at sea in the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay under prisonlike conditions. IRAP and other immigration rights advocates have called for the immediate closure of the migrant center. The organization also called on Congress to investigate alleged human rights abuses at the facility and called for the end of migrant detention operations everywhere. Later Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Guantanamo Bay the "perfect place" for criminal migrants. Hegseth told Fox News that Guantanamo Bay could also temporarily hold other undocumented immigrants while they're waiting to be sent back to their home countries. "It's folks who maybe are in transit to their home country or a safe harbor country, and it's taking a little time to move with that processing of the paperwork,' he said, adding, "Better they be held at a safe location, like Guantanamo Bay, which is meant and built for migrants, meant and built to sustain that away from the American people.' According to media reports, Immigration and Customs Enforcement averaged 710 arrests per day from Thursday through Monday, more than double the daily average of 311 recorded in the 12-month period through September under President Joe Biden. If ICE officers continue with these detentions, it would exceed the agency's previous record set during President Barack Obama's administration in 2013, when daily arrests averaged 636. The Trump administration has intensified deportations, with ICE regularly updating arrest figures. The swift removals have sometimes created challenges in determining where to send deportees, especially when certain countries refuse to accept them. Closing Guantanamo Democratic administrations under Obama and Biden had sought to close the notorious detention camp. It was built by the George W. Bush administration in the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base facility in 2002 following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that began shortly after the 9/11 attacks of 2001. Rights groups say that Guantanamo is a symbol of U.S. disregard for the rule of law, as many detainees were held there without charge or trial. Sue Hendrickson, president and CEO of Human Rights First, said in a statement that sending migrants to Guantanamo would create a human rights catastrophe. 'Housing accused terrorists at Guantanamo has been a debacle. For the past 20 years, the U.S. government has locked up people it never even accused of taking action against the United States while continually failing to try those credibly charged with serious crimes,' she wrote. 'The Trump administration may find the symbolism of sending migrants to Guantanamo darkly appealing; its practical result would be more injustice, waste and self-inflicted loss of credibility,' Hendrickson added. At its height during the Global War on Terror, the detention facility held about 680 prisoners. According to the Pentagon, as of January 6, there were just 15 detainees at the facility. Before being used to detain terror suspects, the U.S. naval facility was also used to house migrants from Cuba and Haiti in the early 1990s, per the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. "At one point in late 1994, the migrant population of the naval station approached 45,000," a CRS report dated August 2022 said. The report noted the last of the migrants had left by the end of January 1996. VOA's Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
