Putting the Terror in Territorial: Reflections on the Global War on Terrorism and U.S. Detention Policy

Abstract

Some miles off in the distance on a swelteringly hot and sunny day, as the waves of the Gulf of Mexico lazily lap at the shore, a group of individuals are held by the U.S. Government without access to the most basic right of Due Process amongst others. Most readers will assume that this description refers to the infamous detention of individuals in Guantanamo Bay at Camp X Ray and now Camp Delta as enemy combatants in the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks. Indeed, readers could be forgiven for thinking this given the extensive media coverage of this topic. However, the picture just painted is not of those held as enemy combatants but rather the plight of a lesser known group of individuals known as the Marielitos who also have been detained by the U.S. Government; not for days, not for weeks, not for months and not just in the years since 9/11 but rather in a continuing program of indefinite detention since their arrival 1980.