President Donald TrumpA federal judge has delivered a major setback to the Trump administration’s controversial decision to detain low-level immigrants at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay.
In a strongly worded ruling, the court found that the policy was “impermissibly punitive,” legally unsupported, and unnecessarily costly.
The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this year by several immigrants who were transferred to the offshore military facility despite having no serious criminal history.
The detainees argued that the administration had no lawful basis under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to hold them outside U.S. territory, especially when traditional immigration facilities were available within the country.
According to court documents, the Trump administration began sending immigrants to Guantánamo shortly after expanding the Migrant Operations Center.
Over the next few months, an estimated 500 people were transferred from the United States to the Cuban base. Many of them had already received final deportation orders, yet remained in custody under a policy the judge said appeared aimed at deterrence rather than necessity.
In her 57-page decision, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan rejected the government’s claim that courts lacked jurisdiction over the case. She also dismissed the argument that the INA permits offshore detention as a routine immigration measure.
The judge noted that using a high-security military facility—historically associated with terrorism suspects—to hold ordinary immigrants violated their due-process rights. She emphasized that the government had access to numerous detention options on U.S. soil that were less extreme and more appropriate.
The court also highlighted the alarming financial burden of the program. Detaining a single immigrant at Guantánamo reportedly cost the government around $100,000 per day, an amount more than 600 times higher than the average cost of holding someone in a standard U.S. immigration center. Critics, including human-rights groups and lawmakers, had previously warned that the program was not only unnecessary but also fiscally irresponsible.
Judge Sooknanan’s ruling keeps the lawsuit alive and opens the door to further legal action that could ultimately shut down the offshore detention strategy altogether.
While the decision does not immediately order the release of detainees, it represents a significant judicial check on the administration’s attempts to expand immigration enforcement beyond traditional legal boundaries.
Civil-rights organizations continue to push for transparency, arguing that holding migrants at a remote military installation severely restricts their access to lawyers and due-process protections.
As the case proceeds, the administration may be forced to reconsider the future of the Guantánamo migrant-detention initiative.