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Dozens of US and international human rights organizations are decrying the Trump administration<\/a>\u2019s plans to establish a migrant \u201ccamp\u201d for fleeing Cubans at the Guant\u00e1namo Bay<\/a> military base if the island nation\u2019s crisis worsens under pressure from the US, according to a letter to members of Congress on Friday.<\/p>\n The 85 groups plan to submit the joint letter, exclusively shared with the Guardian, to US senators and House representatives, expressing their \u201cprofound concern\u201d with comments made last month by a top Department of Defense commander, and describing any prospect of further migrant detention at the base as \u201cdeeply troubling and unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n The commander told Congress<\/a> last month that in the event of what one Republican senator described as \u201cany humanitarian crisis\u201d in Cuba<\/a>, the Pentagon would \u201cset up a camp\u201d at the Guant\u00e1namo Bay US base to \u201cdeal with\u201d migrants.<\/p>\n The United Nations already warned<\/a> in February that Cuba could be on the brink<\/a> of a humanitarian \u201ccollapse\u201d following Donald Trump\u2019s attempts to block<\/a> oil<\/a> supplies from reaching the island and the US president repeatedly threatening<\/a> Cuba\u2019s communist government.<\/p>\n \u201cGuant\u00e1namo should be a relic of the past,\u201d the organizations\u2019 letter to the lawmakers reads. \u201cWe call on you to act without delay to ensure not another dollar goes towards the detention facilities at Guant\u00e1namo, ensure the base is never again used for unlawful mass detention of any group of people, and end the coercive and punitive policy of sanctions and the embargo driving the humanitarian crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter has been signed by groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented dozens of detainees held at Guant\u00e1namo during America\u2019s so-called war on terror<\/a> since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US on September 11<\/a>. The less well-known migrant detention facilities are separate from the terrorism-related detention center at the base.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth have long been known for inhumane conditions, mistreatment, and due process violations,\u201d Friday\u2019s letter states.<\/p>\n Other signatories include a wide variety of US and international advocacy, religious, legal and policy groups such as the Center for Victims of Torture, a chapter of Amnesty International, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Refugees International, the justice team at Sisters of Mercy of the Americas<\/a>, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Detention Watch Network and more.<\/p>\n \u201cGuant\u00e1namo stands alone in its reputation as the most heinous and dangerous place the US president can possibly send you \u2013 outside view, under the radar, beyond the law,\u201d said Yumna Rizvi, a senior policy analyst for the Center for Victims of Torture. \u201cThe US can provide immediate relief to the Cuban people, but instead is choosing to cause irreparable harm and then double down by threatening detention at Guant\u00e1namo for Cubans who need to flee because of his own actions. It is outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n During a US Senate armed services committee hearing on 19 March, Gen Francis Donovan, the commander of US Southern Command (Southcom), which oversees the Guant\u00e1namo Bay<\/a> base on a tiny portion of US-claimed land on Cuba, testified it could be used to establish a new version of a migrant \u201ccamp\u201d for Cubans.<\/p>\n When asked by the Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas about military preparations in response to any humanitarian crisis in Cuba, Donovan said that<\/a> Southcom was under orders to \u201csupport DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] in a mass migration event\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would follow either at sea, or primarily the shore, primarily at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, to set up a camp to deal with those migrants or any overflow from any situation in Cuba itself,\u201d Donovan said.<\/p>\n In a radical escalation of immigration enforcement early last year, Trump signed<\/a> an executive order<\/a> to expand migrant detention operations at Guant\u00e1namo and began sending immigrants from the US to be held there, often en route to deportation. About 780 immigrants detained in the US have been sent to Guant\u00e1namo since last February, sometimes for weeks at a time, according to a tally<\/a> by the New York Times.<\/p>\n The Migrant Operations Center (MOC) is a facility at Guant\u00e1namo under the purview of both the Pentagon and the DHS and has been used for decades to detain a small number of migrants interdicted at sea.<\/p>\n The Guardian revealed<\/a> last year that the private US government contractor running the MOC has fallen under scrutiny for conditions inside other immigration jails it operates. In addition to using the MOC, the administration began to quickly put up tents in a costly and controversial plan to detain an estimated 30,000 migrants at Guant\u00e1namo amid the second Trump administration\u2019s focus on a harsh anti-immigration agenda<\/a>. But the tents were never used and the installations were dismantled.<\/p>\n After the January abduction of the Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, the Trump administration turned its attention on Cuba. \u201cCuba is next, by the way,\u201d Trump said<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the Trump administration is worried about Cuban migration, the solution is simple: stop intentionally impoverishing the Cuban people through an embargo and fuel blockade,\u201d said Michael Galant, a senior research and outreach associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, one of the groups that signed on to Friday\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n