Early this year, the U.S. government expanded the use of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp to house undocumented immigrants identified as national security risks. The move, framed by the Trump administration as a response to overcrowded immigration centers, has sparked criticism over legality, transparency, and long-term precedent.

Guantánamo Bay, known for detaining terrorism suspects in the post-9/11 era, operates in legal gray zones. In simple terms, habeas corpus is a legal process that requires a person in custody be brought before a judge to determine if their detention is lawful, though this process seems to be in question. “Guantánamo Bay is fundamentally a loophole we use to get around specifically the law of habeas corpus,” said instructor of history Nicholas Malinak.

According to officials such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the expansion provides needed detention space for individuals to be held in “interim” – too dangerous to deport or hold in conventional facilities. Malinak warned that this could allow immigration authorities to bypass courts. “[Guantánamo Bay] opens up perhaps a possibility of not having to follow constitutional rights given the prisoners,” said Malinak.

Many detainees at Guantánamo Bay are being held under executive authority without formal arrest or criminal charges. “We’re seeing some of the questions about some of these detainees that they [want to] deport,” Malinak said. “They’re just being detained, not arrested and deported under the Secretary of State or the president’s authority, which is very problematic.”

The legality of acting against immigrants is at question. “Many of them maybe should have been sent away, but you have due process to make sure that people have their rights,” Malinak remarked.

A Tufts University student who was recently detained and sent to Louisiana for deportation hearings are in the midst of this predicament. “They have not been given easy access to their lawyers. They’re not supposed to send them away from the venue in which you would charge them,” said Malinak, “And they mostly have not been charged with crimes—because that would mean you have to charge a specific crime and they have a judge, right?”

Instructor of history Dylan Jennings explained the symbolic weight of the site. “Guantánamo Bay holds this idea as being this prison [where] we throw bad people, really bad people,” Jennings said, “and I think we like to use it as a means of just trying to intimidate people.”

As of January, 15 detainees remain at Guantánamo. Legal or not, these immigrants may have rationales for immigrating the system had not yet accounted for. “Most people don’t want to leave their country. Most people like their country,” said Jennings, “That’s where their family is, it’s where their friends or their culture is, their upbringing, where they feel a sense of belonging. There’s a lot of people who don’t want to leave their country,”

“The 4th 5th and 6th amendments are all about criminal proceedings, most of us don’t need them, but it is for everyone. and when you try and circumvent it for one group, it is easy to circumvent it for another,” said Malinak, who remarked on U.S. internment and sedition policies in past crises.

Jennings cited Benjamin Franklin’s warning, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Jennings further added, “Is this really the appropriate response if we’re still seeing murders at record decade lows?”

Despite concerns, the expansion has received limited attention from the public. Both interviewees pointed to competing headlines. “In other times,” said Malinak, “this would be a huge story.”

While actions in Guantánamo remain ambiguous, questions remain over whether constitutional principles will apply equally to all. “The constitution does not just exist for U.S. citizens, the constitution exists for visa holders and permanent residents… it exists for everyone here,” Malinak said.

While the administration maintains that actions taken were necessary, long-term consequences of housing migrants at Guantánamo remain unclear. For critics, the risk lies not only in who is detained, but in the growing acceptance of a system that places individuals outside the rule of law.

“We are a country of diversity,” Malinak remarked, “a country that for every person that lives here as a citizen, as a resident, as a student, even as a visitor, everyone who comes here defines what the country is.”