The Daily Fuckup

A federal judge on Dec. 5, 2025, kept alive a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s use of Guantánamo Bay to detain migrants facing removal.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan denied the government’s motion to dismiss in Luna Gutierrez v. Noem and, in a separate order the same day, addressed class certification. The ruling clears the case to continue past the pleading stage; it does not resolve whether the detention policy is lawful on the merits.

The opinion discussed allegations and record evidence that the government had held roughly 500 migrants at Guantánamo earlier in 2025 and cited a reported cost estimate of about $100,000 per detainee per day. The plaintiffs say the government lacked authority to hold people with removal orders at the naval base and that the policy is arbitrary, punitive and unconstitutional.

The government argued that the court lacked jurisdiction and that the complaint failed to state a claim. Sooknanan rejected that effort at this stage, allowing the suit to proceed while the separate class-certification ruling took effect on the same date.