Decisions

E.D. Cal. February 3, 2026 2026 WL 145631 (for the original order of 20 January 2026). The number itself sits behind a paid service and could not be confirmed from a public source. Third country: None identified. The removal in prospect was to China.

Xiao Luo Huang was re-detained after Immigration and Customs Enforcement revoked his supervised release. The court held that the government had failed to show changed circumstances establishing a significant likelihood of his removal to China, and went further on what follows from that failure. In its words: "And where an immigration regulation is promulgated to protect a fundamental right derived from the Constitution or a federal statute and ICE fails to adhere to it, the challenged action is invalid." And: "Here, DHS’s failure to follow its own procedural regulations constitutes a due process violation." The agency’s own rules, in other words, are not internal housekeeping that it may set aside at will. Breaking them is itself the constitutional wrong. He was ordered released.

Redetention Order of supervision Compliance with regulations Due process Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Changed circumstances Burden of proof

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only. Take care with which order is being cited. The order of 20 January 2026 was superseded by an amended order of 3 February 2026 carrying the same two sentences, and the petition was then granted outright on 25 February 2026. A current citation should run to the amended order rather than the first one.

E.D. Cal. November 7, 2025 2025 WL 3123793 Third country: None identified in the order.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement revoked the petitioner’s supervised release and re-detained her without showing changed circumstances or a significant likelihood that she would be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future, and without following its own regulations on the review of release decisions. The court granted an injunction and ordered her released. The passage of the decision that later courts cite gathers the earlier cases on where the burden lies, and it is that discussion, rather than the outcome, that has carried into the cases that followed.

Redetention Order of supervision Compliance with regulations Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Changed circumstances Burden of proof Due process

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only. The court anonymised the petitioner to initials in the caption, so the case is filed on the public docket under a different name, Xie v. Lyons. Both names refer to the same case, and the anonymised form is the one the court itself uses in the decision.

S.D. Tex. October 16, 2025 2025 WL 2937692 Third country: None identified in the order.

Iyad Muhammad Abuelhawa was living under an Order of Supervision when Immigration and Customs Enforcement revoked it and re-detained him. The regulation that allows revocation requires changed circumstances making removal significantly likely in the reasonably foreseeable future. The court held that the burden of showing this rests on the government and on nobody else: upon revocation of release, the government bears the burden to show a significant likelihood that the person may be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future, and the required showing, by its terms, can only be made by the government. Here it had identified no changed circumstances at all. He was ordered released back to his previous conditions.

Redetention Order of supervision Compliance with regulations Burden of proof Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Changed circumstances Due process

Caution A district court decision in the Southern District of Texas, binding on the parties only and persuasive at most anywhere else. It is recorded here because the burden question it decides recurs across this whole line of cases, and because later decisions in California cite it. A secondary research memorandum placed this case among decisions of the Northern District of California. It is not one.

E.D. Cal. July 16, 2025 2025 WL 1993771 Third country: None identified. The government said only that it intended to pursue a travel document.

Quoc Chi Hoac had a final order of removal to Vietnam from September 2023 and had been released on an Order of Supervision. In June 2025 he was re-detained. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may revoke supervised release only on a showing of changed circumstances making removal significantly likely in the reasonably foreseeable future. The government offered its intention to seek a travel document. The court held that this was not enough: "Respondents’ intent to eventually complete a travel document request for Petitioner does not constitute a changed circumstance", and the fact that the government intends to complete such a request does not make it significantly likely that the person will be removed in the foreseeable future. He was ordered released, and the government was barred from re-detaining him or removing him to a third country without notice and an opportunity for a hearing.

Redetention Order of supervision Compliance with regulations Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country removal Notice Due process Changed circumstances

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only. An earlier application for a restraining order in the same case had been refused on 30 June 2025, so the sequence matters when the case is cited. The order does not address protection under the Convention against Torture, and nothing in it turns on that.