Three men held in immigration custody for over a year and facing the possibility of transfer to Guantánamo Bay asked a federal court to intervene, warning they might have “disappeared into the legal black hole” of Guantánamo. Last Sunday, a federal judge in New Mexico handed down a surprise ruling blocking the Trump administration from sending the men to Guantánamo -- the first successful legal challenge to the policy since it was enacted last month, ABC News reports. But the very next day, the men were placed on the first deportation flight back to Venezuela in over a year, according to their lawyer Jessica Vosburgh. “It's hard to imagine that it didn't have something to do with them filing a habeas piece and then stepping forward to challenge these threatened Guantanamo transfers,” Vosburgh told ABC News. “The court's order only applied to transfers to Guantánamo, this is just a slap in the face to get deported the next day.”
While Vosburgh stopped short of calling the deportations retaliatory, she said she struggles to see what else could have led to the sudden deportation. Vosburgh also called out the Trump administration for alleging that her clients -- two of whom have no criminal records, and one who was accused of a non-violent offense -- were members of the infamous Tren de Aragua gang, which could cause severe harm now that they are back in Venezuela where President Nicolás Maduro has linked the gang to his political opposition. “Respondents’ reckless labeling of these two Petitioners as gang-affiliated is part of a disturbing pattern, beginning on the Trump campaign trail, of scapegoating and criminalizing migrants who come to this country seeking protection and a better life,” Vosburgh wrote. “It is also part of a trend, fueled by President Trump and his administration and supporters, of painting all Venezuelan migrant men as dangerous gang members deserving of being disappeared into the legal black hole of Guantánamo.”
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