Luna Gutierrez v. Noem – SEEKING TO PREVENT DETENTION OF IMMIGRANTS AT GUANTANAMO

On January 29, 2025, President Trump directed the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security “to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity and to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States,” and declared his intention to hold as many as 30,000 immigrants at Guantanamo. The first detainees were transferred to Guantanamo in early February, and we quickly filed two lawsuits: on February 12, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Noem, seeking to assure that detainees could get access to their lawyers and family members (which was not happening), and on March 1 Escalona v. Noem, seeking to prevent the use of Guantanamo for immigration detention.

However, soon afterward, all the immigration detainees at Guantanamo were removed to their home countries, and we voluntarily dismissed the second case. But wait! The government again began transferring ICE detainees to Guantanamo, and we filed this class action lawsuit on June 4, 2025, together with the National ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the International Refugee Assistance Project, again seeking to prevent the use of Guantanamo for immigration detention, on the grounds that the immigration laws do not permit detention overseas, and that conditions at Guantanamo don’t comply with the minimum standards the Constitutional requires for detainees.

The government’s motion to dismiss our case is due on August 4, 2025.