Biden Legal Team Divided Over Guantanamo Detainees
The case of a Yemeni man who has been detained since 2004 without charge or trial is at the center of the ongoing debate over whether Guantanamo detainees are owed due process or not.
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President Joe Biden’s legal team is divided over whether the government should say that detainees at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have due process rights under the Constitution, reports the New York Times. The question concerns the case involving a 53-year-old Yemeni man, Abdulsalam al-Hela, who has been held without charge or trial at the wartime prison since 2004. During the Donald Trump administration, the department had argued to an appeals court panel that he had no due process rights.
Some Justice Department officials — including career government lawyers who have spent years under administrations of both parties defending Guantánamo detention policies in court — are wary of taking a position that could make it harder to win such cases. The Constitution’s due process clause says no one can be “deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” What process is “due” is not always clear. But if the clause protects the detainees, then they would have a greater basis to ask courts to intervene over how the government treats them across a range of matters — including their continued detention, medical treatment and what evidence could be used in commission trials.
