A federal judge in New Mexico granted a temporary restraining order Sunday to block the US government from transferring three detained Venezuelan migrants to Guantánamo Bay. The three men, currently being held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility, filed the restraining order earlier that day. Their request claims the risk of a transfer was imminent, given the petitioners match “the profile of the individuals who have already been transferred to Guantánamo.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent the first group of migrants to Guantánamo Bay last week following President Trump’s proposal to send more than 30,000 migrants to the military facility. While the exact number of migrants already sent to the base is unclear, the petitioners’ request claims it is already over 50 people. They argued that while US law clearly allows courts to retain jurisdiction over habeas petitions even when detainees are transferred to Guantánamo, it is unclear that the Trump administration will “adhere to that legal principle” and it is “entirely certain that counsel access will be materially and prejudicially diminished” by the transfer.

Chief Judge Kenneth Gonzales agreed with the petitioners’ argument. He noted “the Court cannot say that without this injunction it would not be jurisdictionally deprived to preside over the original writ of habeas corpus should petitioners be transferred.” As such, he found the temporary restraining order to be necessary. The order, however, is limited only to the three petitioners.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has multiple lawyers assigned as counsel to the petitioners. In a Monday press release, CRR attorney Jessica Vosburgh said “[o]ur clients refuse to be used as pawns in this twisted game of punishment theater.” CCR’s legal director Baher Azmy called the judge’s ruling a “small but important win for clients otherwise bound to the latest iteration of a legal black hole.”