Lawsuits are challenging President Trump’s abrupt decision to send men awaiting deportation to the American military base in Cuba.
The Trump administration has started sending migrants from the United States to the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, raising a series of legal questions over the government’s authority to do so and the basic rights of detainees.
More than 150 Venezuelans, so far, are believed to have been taken there. Already at least three lawsuits have been filed related to aspects of the policy, and rights groups are expected to mount a broader challenge.
Here is a closer look at some of the major legal issues.
Can migrants lawfully be transferred there?
It is unclear whether the government has legal authority to transfer migrants from the United States to Guantánamo, which is an odd and ambiguous place for legal purposes.
The base sits on Cuba’s sovereign territory, but the United States has exclusive jurisdiction and control over what happens there because of a perpetual lease and the rupture in relations between the United States and Cuba’s Communist government.
Normally, transfer authority comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers the government to detain migrants who have final removal orders and are awaiting deportation.
There is no dispute that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can transfer them among its different holding facilities inside the United States while they await their removal from the country. But the act defines the geographic territory of the United States as the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. It does not include Guantánamo.