Although not my usual reading material it does give me hope that young people (or at least young girls) are keeping up on our history with Guantanamo:
The history of Guantánamo reflects the racism at the heart of US immigration and refugee policy, a system that has treated Black migrants with tremendous suspicion and has subjected them to rampant immigration law enforcement abuse. Though Black migrants make up just 6% of all people in ICE custody, they constitute about 28% of all abuse-related reports and 24% of migrants in solitary confinement, according to a 2022 report from Freedom for Immigrants, a nonprofit working to end migrant incarceration. “We don’t believe the little Cuban children are given so much misery,” Camp Nine residents wrote in a 1995 petition. “It is that we are Black? Haven’t they heard our voices, are we kids also?”
In the past, as well as in the present, incarcerating migrants at Guantánamo has been catastrophic. It has led to shocking abuse (some of it malicious; some of it through utter incompetence), it has forced the military to operate refugee camps with minimal training for the task, and it has caused unspeakable suffering “with little to no transparency or accountability,” in the words of a recent International Refugee Assistance Project report. Even if the current administration claims Guantánamo will only be used for adults, or only for people with a criminal record, history shows that this is unlikely to restrain them for long. Guantánamo’s power comes in its flexibility — it can be easily, quietly repurposed for whatever “problem” the US wants to make disappear. This includes migrant children and families.
The entire article is worth a read.
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