The Trump administration has told the court that it doesn’t have to respect these essential due process rights.
The Pentagon and Justice Department ignored our initial request for access to the U.S. citizen so we could advise him of his rights and offer him the opportunity of legal representation.
We then filed a habeas corpus petition on the citizen’s behalf in federal court in Washington, demanding that the government justify its detention of the unnamed American.
All U.S. citizens have the right to habeas corpus no matter where the government holds them or what it accuses them of.
The government also complains that allowing counsel to have access to the citizen wouldn’t be “easy.”
And for more than 13 years, courts have ensured attorney access to non-citizens imprisoned at Guantanamo, rejecting government attempts to restrict it.
It is also undermining the bedrock guarantees of habeas corpus, which for centuries has served as the greatest check on unlawful government detentions. »