Eight Somali men and women are being held right now at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — not because they were convicted of a crime, but because they were caught up in a civil immigration case. Several were told by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that their deportation flight was simply making a "refueling stop" in Cuba. Instead, that stop has stretched into weeks of detention at Camp 6, a facility built to hold high-risk military prisoners, not people waiting on paperwork.

Detainees describe being shackled, kept in constantly cold rooms, given cold food and water, and watched by surveillance cameras even in the bathroom. Advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say there is no clear legal authority for holding civil immigration detainees at Guantánamo, and that doing so cuts them off from family, legal counsel, and basic due process.

Guantánamo Bay was built to hold people accused of terrorism, not immigrants and asylum seekers going through the civil immigration system. Whatever anyone believes about immigration policy, using a military prison built for wartime detention to hold people who haven't been convicted of anything is a due process problem that should concern everyone, regardless of politics.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE should immediately end the use of Guantánamo Bay to detain civil immigration cases, and ensure every detainee currently held there is transferred to a facility with normal legal access and family contact.

Sign the petition to demand ICE stop sending immigration detainees to Guantánamo Bay — before more weeks turn into months for people who have committed no crime.