A federal judge in Washington ruled against plaintiffs who challenged the Trump administration’s ability to transfer immigrants who are not legally in the country to the U.S. military base in Cuba, known as Guantánamo Bay.
Federal district court judge Carl John Nichols ruled that the plaintiffs did not meet the proper burden of proof to obtain two separate temporary restraining orders (TROs).
The first TRO would’ve required the Trump administration to give additional access to the military base to attorneys and the second TRO would’ve prevented the Trump administration from transferring additional undocumented immigrants to Guantánamo.
Several immigrant rights groups filed two lawsuits. The first asserted that the U.S. government prevented attorneys from gaining access to and communicating with detainees who were being held at Guantánamo.
“By doing so, the U.S. government has prevented immigrants from accessing legal assistance to understand their rights and to challenge their transfer and detention or conditions of confinement at Guantánamo,” attorneys wrote in their complaint.
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Although, by the time of Friday’s hearing, both sides acknowledged that accommodations had been made to allow attorneys to connect with clients if and when detainees are transferred to Guantánamo.
Attorneys also wanted Judge Nichols to allow attorneys to visit clients who were being detained at Guantanamo, but the court countered that there could be logistical hurdles in allowing attorneys to physically visit detainees on the military base.
But by the time of Friday’s hearing, the U.S. government had already removed all detainees who were transferred from the United States away from the base.
It was revealed in court Friday that all but one of the detainees were transferred back to their home countries.
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While issuing his order declining the first TRO request, Judge Nichols explained the family members of the former detainees, who filed the lawsuits on behalf of their relatives, cannot experience irreparable harm in this case, because their relatives are no longer in custody. The main issue in this portion of the case was not about deportation to their home countries, instead, it was about attorney access to clients while those clients were being held at the base.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case, said plaintiffs were disappointed, but knew this was a possibility because the government moved all detainees from the base right in time for the hearing — an act which meant the initial complaint lost some relevance by the time court hearing took place.
“We're disappointed, but we knew that this was a possibility, given that the government is effectively playing games by moving people constantly in and out of Guantánamo every time we have a legal challenge,” said Gelernt. “So I think the important thing from today is that it didn't say that they can move people to Guantánamo, it just said, in the current posture, with no one at Guantánamo, that the court wasn't going to rule.”
In the second case, plaintiffs asked the court to prevent future transfers of detainees from the United States to Guantánamo.
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Plaintiffs argued that the transfers are not allowed under U.S. law and that the “...transfers and detention additionally violate due process under the Fifth Amendment because the transfers are undertaken for punitive, illegitimate reasons and the conditions in which the detainees are housed are unconstitutional.”
Plaintiffs argued that detainees were held in solitary confinement for 23 hours daily, without windows, shackled, “invasively strip searched” and were not allowed to contact relatives.
In that case, Judge Nichols also denied the TRO request, explaining, in part, that none of the immigrants named in this case are currently being held at Guantánamo.
Judge Nichols said any harm of transfer to Guantánamo is likely not irreparable because if an individual is transferred there, they will be able to contact attorneys for representation.
The judge also asked government attorneys to inform him if any of the named plaintiffs were transferred to Guantánamo. If that were to occur, Judge Nichols said he could fashion an order that preserve the rights of those plaintiffs.
On Jan. 29, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a memo that directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to expand operations at the naval station.
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The document said in part “This memorandum is issued in order to halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty.”
Attorneys for plaintiffs have argued that the government has transferred people who are not high-risk criminals and “... the government has offered no legal authority for the transfer of individuals in immigration custody from within the United States to Guantánamo.”
