Trump performs jiujitsu flip on judge’s order, sends Guantánamo rejects back to Venezuela

The Trump administration sent three illegal immigrants back to their home country of Venezuela in response to a judge’s decision blocking them from being sent to Guantánamo Bay as part of a continued crackdown on illegal immigration. 

U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of New Mexico issued a memo Friday announcing the court had vacated a March 3 status conference for three Venezuelan migrants just five days after it blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to transfer the migrants to Guantánamo Bay.

Since then, Gonzales said, respondents had filed a notice of removal “informing the court that all three petitioners were removed to Venezuela, their home country, on Feb. 10, 2025.” 

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The Trump administration has vowed to deport millions of the more than 11 million people estimated to be living in the U.S. illegally, including deporting some illegal immigrants to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay.

Trump has claimed the individuals deported to Guantánamo are “highly dangerous criminal aliens.” 

But that notion has been sharply disputed by some immigration advocates. 

Lawyers for the Venezuelan immigrants argued in a court filing last week that their clients “fit the profile” of individuals that they allege the Trump 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.”   

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Judge Gonzales granted the migrants’ request for a temporary restraining order blocking their transfer to Guantánamo, ordering the parties back to court March 3 for a status conference.

In response, the administration appears to have taken the matter into its own hands.

The motion to vacate noted that, “[b]ecause Petitioners have now been removed to their home country, it is no longer necessary to hold a status conference” on the previously scheduled date. 

“Nor is it necessary for parties to update the Court by February 24, 2025,” Judge Gonzales said. “Thus, the status conference is hereby vacated.”

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The deportation comes less than a month after President Donald Trump signed into law the Laken Riley Act, a bipartisan law that gives authorities broad power to deport illegal immigrants accused of crimes.

Since Trump’s inauguration, White House officials said that the administration has arrested thousands of people in immigration enforcement actions.