Kristi Noem fired a tasteless dig at migrants after a lawsuit they brought was rendered moot because most of them had already been deported.
“Suck it,” the Department of Homeland Security secretary wrote from her official X account, sharing a screengrab of a “notice of voluntary dismissal” of the lawsuit dated Thursday.
The lawsuit had been brought on March 1 by ten immigration detainees that the Trump administration intended to send to Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay, home to one of the world’s most notorious detention facilities.
Since the case was filed, many of the plaintiffs have been removed from the U.S., and the remaining plaintiffs no longer wish to continue the litigation, according to Thursday’s filing.
Suck it pic.twitter.com/8ruAeJSum2
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) May 22, 2025
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was helping to represent the plaintiffs, said at the time the detainees were at “risk of being transferred to Guantánamo without any legal authority, in violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution.”
The lawsuit, Espinoza Escalona v. Noem, argued the detainees were being deported to the U.S. Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay without authority or due process.
“Never before has the federal government moved noncitizens apprehended and detained in the United States on civil immigration charges to Guantánamo. Nor is there any legitimate reason to do so now,” the lawsuit reads. “The government has ample detention capacity inside the United States,” it added.
The lead plaintiff, Venezuelan man Maiker Espinoza Escalona, entered the U.S. with his partner and their baby last year and requested asylum. He was sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador at the end of March. His partner, Yorley Inciarte, was deported to their home country without their child.
The DHS accuses the couple of being involved with the Venezuelan Tren De Aragua criminal gang, but it has not produced evidence to support its claims. The family deny the allegations.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the ACLU, told ABC News earlier this year he holds serious concerns about what he described as “sudden allegations” from the Trump administration that led to his client’s deportation to El Salvador.
“He and others being sent to the Salvadoran prison must be given due process to test the government’s assertions,” Gelernt said.
As part of a promised immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has been deporting and arresting people under questionable pretenses and in defiance of court orders. It has declined to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, despite a Supreme Court order calling for the administration to facilitate his return.
The Trump administration reportedly spent at least $21 million transporting migrants to Guantánamo Bay between January 20 and April 8. Trump originally pledged to send thousands of people there, but the effort proved problematic and many of the hundreds of migrants that were taken there are reportedly believed to have been brought back to the U.S.
Democrats have slammed the fiasco as a political stunt and waste of money.
The post Kristi Noem’s Cruel Two-Word Diss to Deported Migrants appeared first on The Daily Beast.
