Fights over forums are not new. Long before national injunctions flew from Amarillo and San Francisco, the executive branch sought to control where legal challenges could be filed. Perhaps the most prominent such recent example was Guantanamo Bay. The Bush Administration detained enemy combatants on the military base to avoid federal habeas jurisdiction. That plan, however, did not work out. In a series of cases leading to Boumedienne v. Bush (2008), the federal courts in the District of Columbia asserted jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay.
However, the Bush Administration did secure a venue victory in another case: Rumsfeld v. Padilla (2004). At the time, the Fourth Circuit was considered the most conservative circuit in the country. And in that case, the Bush Administration detained Jose Padilla, a declared "enemy combatant," in a South Carolina military prison. A habeas suit was brought in the Southern District of New York. The Supreme Court held that the suit was not proper in New York. Rather, "for core habeas petitions challenging present physical confinement, jurisdiction lies in only one district: the district of confinement."
That past brings us to the present. In two prominent cases, the Trump Administration has taken actions to keep legal challenges within the Fifth Circuit. And in both cases, judges on the East Coast have played keep-away from the Fifth Circuit.
