The U.S. government urged a D.C. federal judge to reject a request from the ACLU and other advocates to give unauthorized immigrants held at Guantanamo in-person access to lawyers, saying Thursday that the detainees have the ability to speak to attorneys by telephone.

In its opposition to the advocates' motion for a temporary restraining order, the federal government said the bid "seeks extraordinary relief that far exceeds the court's authority because Congress expressly barred federal courts from interfering with the execution of removal orders."

Since Jan. 29, when President Donald Trump directed the secretary of defense and the secretary of homeland security to expand operations at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station to allow for the housing of "high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States," a total of 178 detainees have been sent to detention camp en route to repatriation to their home country, according to the Thursday filing.

The emergency request should also be denied because the petitioners lack standing to bring these claims, since they are friends and third parties, the government argued.

Even if the court has jurisdiction to consider the request for counsel access, procedures have been developed for those at Guantanamo, the government said.

"DHS has developed standards and procedures applicable to immigration detainees at NSGB," the Thursday filing states. "Although DHS and DoD have no record of any detainee making a requested to speak to counsel prior to filing of this suit, on February 19, 2025, DHS posted written notice, in English and Spanish, of the procedure for detainees to request to place a private, unmonitored telephone call to counsel."

A building has been designated with six telephones in six separate rooms, each with a table and chair, the government said. Guards will keep watch of the telephone use using a video camera but without sound, the filing said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, International Refugee Assistance Project, and ACLU of the District of Columbia filed the lawsuit on Feb. 12 on behalf of legal service providers as well as family members of those detained at Guantanamo. The suit claims the immigrants are being held "incommunicado," without access to attorneys, family members or the outside world.

In its opposition to the advocates' temporary restraining order request, the federal government told the court the petitioners' claims are based on an "overstated framing of the limited rights of immigration detainees with final orders of removal, who are staged for final transfer and in the midst of a removal operation."

The detainees are all headed to Venezuela, the government told the court.

"The public equities support the enforcement of final orders of removal and deference to the executive's judgment regarding how to best effectuate timely removals to a country that is now accepting removals, but has been notoriously resistant to taking back its own citizens," the government states.

The proposed order would curb the Trump administration's ability to complete the removal operation and the court would be overstepping if it blocked the repatriation efforts, the government said.

The court also "risks interfering with sensitive repatriation negotiations and other foreign political issues involved in the execution of hundreds of removal orders," the written filing states.

The complaint, which names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other U.S. officials as defendants, seeks court intervention to ensure that the detainees can talk with lawyers and family members. The suit also seeks information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security regarding protocols for attorney-client communication.

Among the plaintiffs are family members of three Venezuelan nationals — Tilso Ramon Gomez Lugo, Yoiker David Sequera and Luis Alberto Castillo Rivera — who were transferred to Guantanamo from an immigration detention facility in Texas.

Four legal providers acting as plaintiffs — Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, American Gateways, and Americans for Immigrant Justice — said in the complaint that the U.S. government's decision to hold noncitizens in isolation at Guantanamo is "no coincidence," as the location became notorious for what have been described as acts of torture when it was used 20 years ago to house Muslim militants and suspected terrorists captured by U.S. forces.

Earlier this month, the administration said it plans to send thousands of immigrants arrested in the mainland U.S. to Guantanamo as part of a broader plan to arrest, detain and deport millions of unauthorized immigrants, a focal point of Trump's presidential platform.

ACLU lawyer Lee Glernt said the telephone access being offered is "limited" and in-person contact is needed.

"We will need more access than they are willing to provide," Glernt wrote in an email.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment.

The plaintiffs are represented by Brett Max Kaufman and Eunice Hyunhye Cho of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Lee Gelernt of the American Civil LIberties Union, Arthur B. Spitzer and Scott Michelman of the ACLU of the District of Columbia and Kimberly Robin Grano of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Noem and the other government defendants are represented by Brian P. Hudak of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and Sarah S. Wilson and Nancy Kwang Canter of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The case is Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center et al. v Noem et al., case number 1:25-cv-00418, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

--Additional reporting by Marco Poggio. Editing by Linda Voorhis.