{"id":7965,"date":"2017-06-09T09:14:13","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T13:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reprieve.org\/?p=7965"},"modified":"2018-04-05T17:18:17","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T21:18:17","slug":"day-trumps-guantanamo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reprieve.org\/us\/2017\/06\/09\/day-trumps-guantanamo\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day at Trump’s Guant\u00e1namo"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][image_with_animation image_url=”7970″ alignment=”center” animation=”Fade In” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Time has stopped here in Guant\u00e1namo Bay.<\/strong> Forty-one men remain imprisoned without charge<\/a>: suspended in space and time, detached from families and homeland, a 15-year hiatus from reality. I\u2019ve been coming to this place for a few years now as a lawyer for the prisoners, but it still feels surreal to me. Some days (including today), the power will go out entirely on one side of the island, and stay out all day without explanation or warning. The only modes of transportation here are a yellow school bus and slow-chugging ferry\u2014a throwback to some suburban childhood that wasn\u2019t mine.<\/p>\n

Days at Guant\u00e1namo are quiet and dull\u2014the people who work on the base have polite southern accents (all \u2018yes sir\u2019 and \u2018no ma\u2019am\u2019), and all the faces are familiar. It\u2019s like a scene from Pleasantville\u2014but for the prison. I think people here forget that they\u2019re living next to the most famous prison in the world. When I answer a mail clerk\u2019s question about why I\u2019m on the base, he looks as though I have reminded him of a childhood classmate he had worked to forget. \u201cOhh yeah\u2026 right,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

On this trip, I am meeting with eight men. One of them\u2014Towfiq Bihani<\/a>\u2014was cleared to go home in 2009. This means that the entire American security apparatus has agreed unanimously that Towfiq posed no threat to the USA. Guant\u00e1namo may be the only prison on earth that keeps prisoners it concedes need not be imprisoned.<\/p>\n

This is the era of Donald Trump, which for most down here simply means the third commander-in-chief who hasn\u2019t quite known what to do about this illegal prison. The detainees all have different perspectives on what his clumsy reign will bring. For now, we sit and wait. My clients have become good at that.<\/p>\n

These days, things are as quiet inside the prison as out. The inmates are now long-term residents, and have been there much longer than the average Guant\u00e1namo resident, who\u2019ll rotate here for some nine months to two years. These prisoners have familiar routines, old favorites, likes and dislikes; they know the behaviors of local wildlife as well as any local biologist might.\u00a0They can explain the Caribbean weather patterns, and list which foods are available on base and which are not. They are like 41 grandfathers with a view of the town from their front porch, but their ankles are chained to their rocking chairs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We communicate in English, all of my clients and I. Sometimes they correct my word choice, and I imagine a little \u201cw\/c\u201d scribbled on a high school essay. This trip, two of my clients read aloud to me from books in English. What kind of shattered beauty is it to teach yourself a new language from scratch in this place\u2014the language of your captors.<\/p>\n

All my clients here have spent over ten years in prison without ever being charged with a crime. Ten years ago, I didn\u2019t have my law license. Ten years ago, we heard Obama promise the closure of Guant\u00e1namo from the campaign trail. The men here know better than anyone that political promises in Washington are just that.<\/p>\n

As the years tick by, while American politicians hem and haw, and American people look away, these stranded prisoners age\u2014beards turn gray and life slips away. My unmarried clients dream of a future family, children to raise, while encountering the usual signs of growing older\u2014high blood pressure, osteoporosis, arthritis. What happens when my client, Saifullah Paracha<\/strong><\/a>, a 70-year-old father of four, has a heart attack while imprisoned here? There is no facility to save him.<\/p>\n

On the airplane home to New York, I wonder if Donald Trump, businessman, has done the math on Guant\u00e1namo. It costs the U.S. government $445 million a year to keep this prison open. That\u2019s over $29,000 per prisoner, per night\u2014spent to secure me, as an American, from the clients I visit several times a year. Meanwhile, men across the world dress their prisoners in familiar orange jump suits to terrify us all.<\/p>\n

I know I don\u2019t feel any safer, do you?[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/3″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][\/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/3″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][nectar_btn size=”jumbo” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” url=”https:\/\/reprieve.org\/us\/2018\/01\/10\/2018-end-guantanamo\/” text=”Back to “2018: The end of Guant\u00e1namo“”][\/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/3″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time has stopped here in Guantanamo Bay. 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