Judge denies relief in lawsuits challenging Guantánamo detentions
President Donald Trump and his administration just won big after a federal judge rejected a request to block one of Trump's plans.
The Hill reported that U.S District Judge Carl Nichols has officially “declined to grant temporary injunctive relief” to the plaintiffs of two lawsuits against Trump and his plan to send illegal immigrants to be detained in Guantánamo Bay.
In the first lawsuit Nichols rejected, the plaintiffs “failed to show irreparable harm” needed for the outcome to go in their favor.
Both lawsuits created are being supported by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Another concern from an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Lee Gelernt, was that the legal teams representing the migrants detained would “likely not know the government moved” them to Guantánamo Bay until after it happened.
Gelernt called it a “Catch-22.”
“We don’t know that the moment we walk out of court they (won’t) be sent to Guantánamo,” he added.
Nichols was immediately skeptical of Gelernt’s argument.
“Who is affected in any way at this time right now?” the judge asked Gelernt, considering the fact that not one migrant is currently being detained at the prison.
Ensign also hit on the fact that literally none of those challenging Trump were even detained at the prison.
While Nichols did reject the lawsuits, he asked that Ensign agree that the government would notify him if any of the plaintiffs were, in fact, transferred to the notorious prison.
Ensign agreed to the request.
Democratic Representative Sara Jacobs, who made a visit to the prison just last week as part of a “congressional delegation visit” reported her concerns with the prison.
“What we saw really was that there is very low capacity there, and it’s really expensive, and I could see no operational reasons for using Guantanamo Bay for immigration detention,” Jacobs said in an interview with CNN
“It was clearly just because Donald Trump liked the optics,” she went on.
However, Department of Justice Lawyer, Drew Ensign, called the lawsuits against the Trump administration’s Guantánamo Bay efforts the “weirdest prison conditions cases you’ve ever faced,” as not a single illegal immigrant is being detained at the prison.