President Donald Trump’s administration was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Sunday from sending three Venezuelan nationals suspected of being Tren de Aragua members to the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of the administration’s effort to deport illegal immigrants in the United States.
According to Fox News, reported that lawyers for the three Venezuelan nationals submitted a legal filing, arguing that the Venezuelan nationals “fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantánamo, i.e. Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang.”
According to court documents, the three Venezuelan nationals, identified as Luis Eduardo Perez Parra, Leonel Jose Rivas Gonzales, and Abrahan Josue Barrios Morales, have been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in New Mexico since late 2023.
Fox News reported that lawyers asked a U.S. District Court in New Mexico to grant a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from flying them to Guantanamo Bay, claiming that “the mere uncertainty the government has created surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to authorize the modest injunction.”
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On Sunday, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales granted the temporary restraining order, writing, “Considering the uncertainty surrounding jurisdiction, the court determines it is necessary to enjoin the transfer of petitioners to Guantánamo Bay.” Gonzales claimed that blocking the Trump administration from flying the three Venezuelan nationals to Guantanamo Bay was “necessary to achieve the ends of justice entrusted to this court.”
In a statement obtained by NPR, Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, claimed that sending immigrants to Guantanamo Bay and “holding them incommunicado without access to counsel or the outside world opens a new shameful chapter in the history of this notorious prison.”
Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the “first flights” of illegal immigrants being sent to Guantanamo Bay were “underway.” The Trump administration’s confirmation came after the president signed an executive order instructing the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to “begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay” to house “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”