Guantánamo: Where Due Process Goes to Vacation
Yes, a judge found Trump 'exceeded authority' in shipping deportees to Guantánamo. Because, apparently, even the world's most infamous offshore black site needs a memo before it can process new 'guests.' The Times frames this as an anomaly, a Trumpian aberration. Yet, the very existence of Guantánamo as a judicial black hole, for decades fueled by successive administrations' executive overreach,
rarely merits such a shocked tone. The camp, established in 2002 under George W. Bush after 9/11, has been a legal quagmire for over two decades, detaining individuals without trial for years—a bipartisan 'wartime' innovation. One might wonder if the concern for 'exceeded authority' only surfaces when the detainees aren't wearing orange jumpsuits, or when the 'bad guys' aren't conveniently labeled
'terrorists.' It seems the U.S. government's ability to bend, if not outright break, international law in pursuit of 'national security' is less about party lines and more about location. The facility itself, operating outside the full jurisdiction of U.S. courts, already embodies a systemic excess of authority. To then declare a specific use of it 'excessive' is less a course correction and more
a critique of poor branding.