The Guantanamo Eleven's habeas petition

Eleven Guantanamo detainees have filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging their continued detention. The case, Al Bihani v. Trump, has been assigned to Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Excerpt:

For these 11 habeas petitioners, Guantánamo now sits in an even more precarious and dubious legal space than it did in 2002, when the executive branch resisted any legal constraints on its detention authority – a position the courts ultimately rejected in favor of judicial intervention. See Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004). Petitioners have all been detained between ten and sixteen years without charge or trial, and for much of that time, in subhuman conditions. Given the President’s commitment, in fulfillment of a campaign promise, not to release any detainees during his administration, they face an arbitrary additional term of detention of four, or possibly eight, years. Such an additional term of years will mean irreparable harm for Petitioners. For the aging and unwell among them, including some on prolonged hunger strike, it may not be survivable. Habeas is a flexible, equitable remedy that at its core is meant to check arbitrary executive action. When fundamental legal principles – and human lives – are at stake, the judicial branch is compelled to act.