Ten migrants slated to be moved to a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have sued the Trump administration, arguing that a transfer to the faraway detention center rife with allegations of abuse is unnecessary and illegal.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Department of Homeland Security, agency secretary Kristi Noem and officials for Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the weekend.

“Plaintiffs do not challenge the government’s authority to detain them on U.S. soil or to directly remove them to their home country or another statutorily authorized country,” the ACLU says in the suit.

“What they challenge is the government’s unprecedented and unlawful decision to transfer and detain them at Guantánamo, which under the [Immigration and Nationality Act] is Cuba. That is per se illegal, even apart from the horrific detention conditions and the lack of meaningful access to counsel or the outside world.”

Now the clock is ticking: The government has promised not to transfer the migrants only through March 17, according to court records. All 10 migrants are currently being held at immigration processing or detention centers in Texas, Arizona or Virginia.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C. has ordered the government to respond to the lawsuit no later than March 10, ahead of a hearing in his courtroom on March 14.

The question of whether the transfer will be blocked will be discussed at that hearing, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who is representing the plaintiffs, told HuffPost on Wednesday.

There were roughly 44,000 undocumented individuals being held in ICE custody as of the end of February, according to a synthesis of federal data.

The government claims anyone who has been sent to Guantánamo Bay — or is scheduled to go there — is a violent criminal gang member and the “worst of the worst.” The ACLU says that characterization is not only “patently false” but categorically irrelevant, since existing federal laws prohibit the government from detaining and sending any immigrants or migrants to Guantánamo.

Migrants who are being held there now say they’ve been flagged as dangerous criminals because officials have misinterpreted their tattoos; for example, one Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. to seek asylum said his rosary tattoo is not “gang-related” as the government claims. Another Venezuelan national in custody said ICE officers have told him he will be deported to Mexico if he refuses to go to Guantánamo. Migrants with no history of gang activity are nonetheless being interviewed by ICE agents from the department’s anti-gang division, the ACLU says.

Furthermore, attorneys for the plaintiffs say they hear conditions on the island’s detention facility are “far worse” than they are at ICE detention centers in the U.S.

“People are subject to invasive strip searches upon leaving or entering their cells. Those who spoke out about their conditions or treatment are tied to a chair for hours. Detainees report how guards withheld water as punishment and one officer slammed a radio against a detainee’s hand, fracturing it. One individual was reportedly beaten up so badly that he tried to harm himself twice in two weeks,” the lawsuit claims.

Immigrants who were initially held at Guantánamo by the Trump administration didn’t have access to their attorneys, family or the outside world until legal organizations stepped in, the ACLU and other immigrant advocacy organizations claim.

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center sued the administration early last month, alleging immigrants were being hurried off to Cuba and were being treated as if they were in a “black box,” cut off from outside contact, including contact to their attorneys.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment on pending litigation.