Decisions

E.D. Cal. June 27, 2026 Third country: Equatorial Guinea

An immigration judge had ordered the petitioner removed to Egypt but granted him withholding of removal to Egypt in 2018. In 2026 the government sought to remove him instead to Equatorial Guinea, and placed him on a charter manifest for 28 April 2026. The court recorded that he “had no knowledge of respondents’ intent to remove him to Equatorial Guinea at the time he filed his habeas petition.” The court granted the petition and enjoined the respondent from removing him “to a third country without notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard in reopened removal proceedings with a hearing before an Immigration Judge.” The record contains the government’s own account of how a removal of this kind is documented. A declaration filed by the Department of Homeland Security states: “His acceptance by Equatorial Guinea and placement on the manifest for this charter serves as the travel document in Petitioner’s removal.” The government relied on a Third Country Removal Agreement signed by the Department of State with the Government of Equatorial Guinea on 23 October 2025, said to contain assurances that people removed there “will not be subjected to persecution or torture,” which the State Department had determined credible. The court recorded that the respondents did not produce a copy of that agreement. The court declined to treat country-level assurances as a substitute for an individual decision, quoting Mbaba v. Perez: reliance on “blanket assurances is no substitute for an individualized determination through a proceeding that is appropriately calibrated to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard.” Uncontested expert evidence before the court described more than two dozen third-country nationals removed by the United States to Equatorial Guinea since November 2025 who had subsequently been sent on to their countries of origin.

Third-country removal Notice Diplomatic assurances Travel documents Convention Against Torture Withholding of removal Chain refoulement Habeas corpus

Caution The agreement on which the removal rested was never produced to the court that was deciding whether the removal was lawful. The assurances are described in the record as the government’s representations and were not the subject of any judicial finding. The record is internally inconsistent on documentation. An earlier order in the same case, summarising a deportation officer’s declaration, states that travel documents for removal to Equatorial Guinea were received on 2 April 2026. That does not sit with the declaration that the manifest serves as the travel document. Nothing published resolves the two accounts, and the Coalition records both. The date above is that of the order adopting the findings and recommendations. The findings and recommendations themselves are dated 5 June 2026.

S.D. Tex. June 12, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 1999306 Third country: Cameroon

The court held that the jurisdiction-stripping provisions do not bar habeas, because challenging the designation of a third country never named in the removal order is not a challenge to the execution of that order, and that the petitioner was substantially likely to succeed on her claim that generalised diplomatic assurances from Cameroon cannot substitute for individualised notice and an evidentiary hearing. It entered a preliminary injunction barring removal to any third country until at least ten days’ notice of the proposed country and an individualised hearing before an immigration judge.

Third-country designation Notice Withholding of removal CAT Due process Jurisdiction Diplomatic assurances Chain refoulement

Caution Unpublished slip copy. A preliminary injunction resting on likelihood of success, not a final merits judgment, effective until modified or superseded. The court cautioned that the law in this area is developing rapidly and said it may reconsider the order in light of new developments. It refused one request, declining to order the government itself to move to reopen the immigration proceedings, and declined to consider the status of the petitioner’s motion to reconsider in the immigration court. It treated the Supreme Court’s emergency stay in D.V.D. as not a merits holding. No subsequent history appears as of 7 September 2026.

D. Colo. June 10, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 1678205 Third country: Cameroon; ICE had earlier sought acceptance from Libya, Tanzania and Lebanon, and had arranged a flight toward Equatorial Guinea

The court refused immediate release and a bond hearing, holding that the petitioner’s own refusal to board his flight made him the impediment to removal. It granted relief in part, ordering that notwithstanding Cameroon’s diplomatic assurances he receive written notice in a language he understands, and at least ten days and a hearing before an immigration judge to raise a fear-based claim, before removal to Cameroon or any other third country.

Third-country designation Notice Due process Diplomatic assurances Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Jurisdiction Class action

Caution Unpublished slip copy. The petitioner was self-represented and the application was liberally construed. The order rests on Pacheco v. Baltazar and on A.A.M. v. Andrews, and presumes familiarity with an earlier related habeas case. Respondents were ordered to file a status report within five days of the hearing, so the operative outcome post-dates this order.

N.D. Cal. May 14, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 1915726 Third country: Saint Kitts and Nevis

The court granted a preliminary injunction barring removal to Saint Kitts and Nevis, or any other country not designated on the removal order, unless the petitioner is first given notice and an opportunity to pursue fear-based protection, and barring re-detention without notice and a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker. It held that the jurisdiction-stripping provisions did not apply because he challenges the manner of his detention and removal rather than the removal order, and declined to treat the March 2025 policy memorandum or the State Department’s credibility finding on Saint Kitts’ diplomatic assurances as displacing binding circuit precedent on due process.

Third-country designation Notice Withholding of removal CAT Redetention Due process Jurisdiction Diplomatic assurances

Caution A preliminary injunction, resting on likelihood of success and not a final merits ruling; the habeas petition remains pending and the order runs until further order of the court. Unpublished slip copy. An APPEAL WAS FILED IN THE NINTH CIRCUIT ON 14 JULY 2026, so its status should be checked before reliance. The court expressly declined to weigh the evidence about conditions faced by third-country deportees, and did not reach the substantive due process claim.

W.D. Wash. March 12, 2026 829 F. Supp. 3d 907; 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51428; 2026 WL 698786 Third country: None identified. No country had agreed to accept him.

A twenty-two year old Egyptian man was ordered released after roughly seventeen months in immigration detention, eight of them after his removal order became final. An immigration judge had ordered him removed but granted withholding of removal to Egypt, which the court described, following the Ninth Circuit, as a powerful indication of the improbability of his foreseeable removal by any objective measure. He held no other citizenship and no country had agreed to take him. The court recorded what brought him to the United States. His father was arrested, detained, tortured and deprived of medical care after a dispute with a member of the Egyptian parliament over corruption in their village, and died. He then campaigned for an opposition candidate and continued that activity at his university, where he was a law student, and was himself arrested, detained and tortured as a political prisoner. The court ordered immediate release, required the government to confirm the release within forty-eight hours, prohibited re-detention without first complying with 8 C.F.R. 241.13(i) and 8 U.S.C. 1231, and prohibited removal to any third country without notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond. It set out what compliant notice requires: written notice of the country designated, the statutory basis for the designation, and an affirmative question to the person about whether they fear persecution or harm there, with the answer recorded in writing. It said the government's own policy does not inspire confidence that it can be relied on to provide that process without a court order. The punitive claim was refused, and the reason matters. The court held it did not have a sufficient basis to find the third-country removal programme unconstitutional as a whole, or punitive as applied to this man. The declaration he relied on came from Nguyen v. Scott and concerned pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants and the resulting removals to South Sudan and Eswatini. He is Egyptian, and offered nothing about a removal practice specific to him or to people like him. The findings in the other cases, the court held, were specific to a particular population and particular destination countries and do not extend to these circumstances. The court also refused two further requests: a hearing before an immigration judge at which the government would have to prove danger or flight risk by clear and convincing evidence before any re-detention, and a set of four conditions the petitioner asked to be imposed before re-detention, neither of which it found any authority for.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Withholding of removal CAT Redetention Revocation of supervision Third-country removal Notice Meaningful opportunity Diplomatic assurances Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing Evidence of destination conditions

Caution A district court decision, binding only on the parties. The petitioner won release and the procedural protections, and lost on punishment. That loss is the reason this entry is here. Read alongside Nguyen v. Scott, Abubaka v. Bondi, Hambarsonpour v. Bondi, Baltodano v. Bondi and Pham v. Warden, it shows that the punitive argument has so far turned on evidence about the destination rather than on the doctrine. Where a court has been shown what happens to people on arrival in a named country, it has found the practice punitive. Where it has not, it has declined, and has said the earlier findings were tied to a particular population and particular destinations. Judge Lasnik refused the same claim in Baltodano in November 2025 for want of that evidence and granted it in December once the evidence was supplied. The commercial reporter carried a positive signal on this decision as of September 2026.

D. Mass. February 25, 2026 2026 WL 521557

Granting the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment as to Counts I and IV, dissolving the April 18, 2025 preliminary injunction, and dismissing Counts II, III, V and VI, the court declared the third-country removal policy unlawful and set it aside. The policy is identified as DHS’s memorandum of 30 March 2025, “Guidance Regarding Third Country Removals,” and ICE’s memorandum of 9 July 2025 issued after the Supreme Court’s stay. The court also declared that 8 C.F.R. § 1240.12(d) and 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b) require the government to seek removal to a class member’s designated country, alternative country, or country of citizenship before effecting removal to a third country, and that class members have the right to meaningful notice before removal to any third country and to a meaningful opportunity to raise a country-specific claim before it. The opinion opens: “This case is about whether the Government may, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country, or a country where he is likely to be persecuted, or tortured, thereby depriving that person of the opportunity to seek protections to which he would be undisputedly entitled.” On the assurances the policy relies on: “nobody really knows anything about these purported ‘assurances.’ Whom do they cover? What do they cover? Why has the Government deemed them credible? How can anyone even know for certain that they exist?”

Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Class relief Diplomatic assurances Statutory sequence

Caution The judgment was stayed by its own terms “until fifteen days from date of issuance or until the First Circuit rules on any motion for an administrative stay or stay pending appeal, whichever occurs first.” The First Circuit granted the government a stay pending appeal on 16 March 2026, over the dissent of Judge Montecalvo; that order is registered separately. The class is defined in the judgment as those with a final removal order under INA sections 240, 241(a)(5) or 238(b), including withholding-only proceedings, whom DHS has deported or will deport on or after 18 February 2025 to a country not previously designated and not identified in writing in the prior proceedings.

W.D. Wash. February 11, 2026 826 F. Supp. 3d 1282; 2026 WL 381163 Third country: Uganda, by notice of intent September 2025. Requests later sent to Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with no reply.

A Russian man who arrived at a port of entry and was detained in May 2024 sought asylum on the ground that he feared persecution in Russia for opposing corruption. An immigration judge found he had a well-founded fear of future persecution by the Russian government and granted withholding of removal, recording that but for the presumption of ineligibility required by the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule she would have granted asylum outright. The government appealed, never filed a brief, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed the appeal in June 2025. The government then kept him in detention while it looked for a third country. The court ordered his release within one day. Removal to Russia was barred by the immigration judge's order, and the government did not address the point in its brief at all. Its own declaration showed it had served him with a notice of intent to remove him to Uganda in September 2025, had then asked him to complete forms for the countries he had named, had not sent those requests to Denmark, Norway and Sweden until January 2026, and had received no reply from any of them. The court permanently barred removal to any third country without notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard in reopened removal proceedings with a hearing before an immigration judge. It set out the 9 July 2025 ICE memorandum in its own words, including the provision that where the Department of State believes diplomatic assurances credible, a person "may be removed without the need for further procedures." It recorded that the government itself accepts that courts in the district have found due process requires more than that policy, and it quoted the observation from Nguyen v. Scott that it would be impossible to comply both with Ninth Circuit precedent and the policy. It also held that the Supreme Court's stay in the D.V.D. class action does not bar an individual habeas petition, since it is not clear whether the stay rested on jurisdiction or on the merits, and one of the government's main arguments there concerned the power to grant class-wide relief, which has no bearing on individual cases. The punitive claim was refused, without prejudice. The court accepted that there is extensive evidence across multiple cases that the government is carrying out some third-country removals that are unconstitutionally punitive. But the law of permanent injunctions did not let it infer from those cases that everyone facing third-country removal is likely to suffer the same harm. It gave its reasons on these facts: this petitioner has no criminal record, and the countries the government had actually approached were Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Withholding of removal Political persecution Third-country removal Notice Reopened removal proceedings Diplomatic assurances Unconstitutional punishment D.V.D. class action Effect of the Supreme Court stay

Caution The petitioner won release and the notice protections, and lost on punishment. That loss is the reason this entry is here. Read with Saadhom v. Bondi and with the two-stage sequence in Baltodano v. Bondi, it shows what the punitive finding has so far depended on. It is not a doctrinal dispute. Every court to consider it has accepted that some of these removals are punitive. What divides the outcomes is whether the person before the court was shown to be at risk of that particular fate, which has turned on who they are and where the government was actually trying to send them. Here the court pointed to a petitioner with no criminal record and to proposed destinations in northern Europe. The refusal was without prejudice, so it decides nothing for the future if the destination changes. The Uganda notice recorded in this decision is a court record of a proposed destination, not a finding about conditions there. A district court decision, binding only on the parties.

W.D. Wash. February 6, 2026 824 F. Supp. 3d 1124; 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25338 Third country: Mexico proposed; twenty-four countries approached

A Venezuelan man granted withholding of removal to Venezuela under the Convention against Torture was detained eleven months while ICE approached twenty-four countries for acceptance. Five replied and all five refused. The court ordered his release under Zadvydas, holding there was no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, and enjoined his removal to any third country without meaningful notice and an opportunity to be heard. It held that the ICE memorandum of 9 July 2025 falls far short of due process, noting with alarm that the policy permits removal with no further procedure at all where the Department of State credits a diplomatic assurance, and that ICE will not affirmatively ask whether the person fears the country of removal.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country removal Notice Meaningful opportunity CAT Withholding of removal Diplomatic assurances Unconstitutional punishment

Caution The separate claim that third-country removal is itself unconstitutional punishment was denied without prejudice on the record before the court, not rejected as a theory. The court recorded that the petitioner did not substantiate his allegations but that the government did not deny them, and quoted the finding that courts in this district and across the country have recognised that the government is intentionally removing individuals to countries where they will be imprisoned. It distinguished the cases so finding as specific to a particular population and particular destination countries.

W.D. Wash. December 23, 2025 817 F. Supp. 3d 1102; 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 265398 Third country: Mauritania and then Uganda, by successive statements of intent. Neither was ever pursued to the point of a travel document.

An Egyptian man was ordered released after two hundred and twenty-five days in immigration detention. An immigration judge had denied his asylum claim and ordered him removed to Egypt, but granted withholding of removal under the Convention against Torture, which meant a finding that if returned he would more likely than not be tortured. Both sides waived appeal. He has no citizenship or significant ties to any other country, no travel document had been obtained for anywhere, and no country had been identified as willing to take him. On detention the government offered no response at all. It conceded the six month period had passed, then ignored the burden that shifts to it. The court traced what the government had actually done. In May 2025 an officer told him of an intent to attempt removal to Mauritania. A consular request in June was unsuccessful. By September that plan had apparently been abandoned, because on 2 September, in the final days of the ninety day removal period, he was served with a notice of intent to remove him to Uganda. There was no evidence that any step was ever taken towards Uganda: no travel document sought, no interest shown by Uganda, no communication with Uganda about him at all, and Uganda was not among the consulates contacted. Then on 15 December, thirteen days after this petition was filed, he was handed a Mauritanian travel document application. The court said the government cannot overcome a pending petition by handing over an application and making a request to headquarters it could have made months earlier. The court rejected the argument that he lacked standing to challenge third-country removal. Standing was obvious, because the government conceded it was pursuing his removal to third countries. It added that the government's own assertion that he "has not independently raised fear in response to a notice of removal to Uganda" showed he had already been injured, because due process requires that a person be asked whether they fear the destination rather than left to volunteer it. It also rejected the argument that his membership of the D.V.D. class barred individual relief. The order sets out the 9 July 2025 ICE memorandum in detail, and it is the fullest account of that policy in this register. Where the United States has received diplomatic assurances the Department of State believes credible, a person "may be removed without the need for further procedures." Where it has not, an officer serves a notice of removal naming the country, but the policy states that ICE "will not affirmatively ask whether the [noncitizen] is afraid of being removed to the country of removal." ICE will generally wait at least twenty-four hours before removing, and in exigent circumstances only six. If the person does not affirmatively state a fear within twenty-four hours, they are removed. The court held these procedures fall far short of what due process requires, and found that the government had misrepresented what protections the policy actually gives. The punitive claim was refused without prejudice. The court recorded the petitioner's allegation, drawn from reporting in The New Yorker, that the government had attempted and completed an end run around the Convention against Torture by deporting a group of people to Ghana, which then sent them on to their countries of citizenship despite their fears of persecution. It noted that he did not substantiate the allegations, that the government did not deny them, and that courts in this district and across the country have recognised that the government is intentionally removing individuals to countries where they will be imprisoned. Even so, on these pleadings it had no sufficient basis to find the programme unconstitutional as a whole or punitive as applied to him, because the cases so finding were specific to a particular population and particular destination countries.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) CAT Withholding of removal Standing Ripeness Third-country removal Notice Reopened removal proceedings Diplomatic assurances ICE policy of 9 July 2025 Unconstitutional punishment D.V.D. class action

Caution A district court decision, binding only on the parties. The petitioner won release and the notice protections, and lost on punishment, without prejudice. The refusal follows the same line as Saadhom v. Bondi and Vashchuk v. Bondi. The court did not doubt that some of these removals are punishment. It said the findings to that effect were tied to particular populations and particular destinations, and that this petitioner had not connected himself to them. The Uganda and Mauritania notices recorded here are court records of what the government said it intended, not findings about conditions in either country. The court's point about Uganda was that nothing was ever done about it, which raises its own question about why the notice was served at all in the last days of the removal period. The account of the Ghana removals is the petitioner's allegation as the court recorded it, sourced to a magazine article. It is not a finding. The findings on Ghana are in D.A. v. Noem, recorded separately in this register.

E.D. Cal. September 18, 2025 2025 WL 2675760 Third country: Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia, or Benin (mentioned to the petitioner; none secured)

The court enjoined third-country removal without written notice, a minimum of ten days to raise a Convention Against Torture claim, and reopening or fifteen days to seek reopening, but declined to order release under Zadvydas.

Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Withholding of removal Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Bond hearing Jurisdiction 1252(g) Diplomatic assurances

Caution Preliminary injunction converted from a temporary restraining order with merits briefing to follow, although the decretal paragraph says 'permanently enjoined'; the bond hearing within 30 days, which the government requested, appears in the analysis but not in the numbered decretal paragraphs; the judge is not named anywhere in the printout; the assurances material comes from the court's quotation of ICE's July 9, 2025 policy, not from any assurance in this case.

D.D.C. September 15, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180319; 2025 WL 2646888 Third country: Ghana

Five citizens of Nigeria and The Gambia, each of whom had been granted withholding of removal or deferral of removal after an immigration judge found they were more likely than not to face persecution, torture or death at home, were woken in the middle of the night on 5 September 2025 at an immigration detention facility, shackled, and put aboard a United States military cargo plane. They were not allowed to notify family or counsel. One was sent without identification documents. Some were placed in straitjackets for up to sixteen hours, and one says he now has difficulty walking because his was secured so tightly. They were told in the air that they were being taken to Ghana. None is Ghanaian, none has any connection to Ghana, and none had designated Ghana during their immigration proceedings. On arrival they were taken to Dema Camp, described by the court as a remote, open-air detention facility surrounded by armed military guards. At the hearing the government agreed that, although the five hold final orders of removal, they cannot lawfully be returned to their home countries. It said Ghana had assured the United States it would not send them anywhere they would likely be tortured. One of the five was sent back to his home country almost immediately and is in hiding. The government agreed that Ghana appears to be violating the assurance it gave, agreed that the practice "is not okay," and said it could not prevent the repatriation because the United States "does not have the power to tell Ghana what to do." The court denied emergency relief. It held that the plaintiffs had not carried their burden of showing jurisdiction to order what they asked for, and it did not reach the merits. In doing so it said the government's actions "appear to be taken in disregard of or despite its obligations to provide individuals present in the United States with due process and to treat even those who are subject to removal humanely," and "appear to be part of a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government's legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly." It added that "this case is not an outlier." It closed by saying it was "alarmed and dismayed by the circumstances under which these removals are being carried out, especially in light of the government's cavalier acceptance of Plaintiffs' ultimate transfer to countries where they face torture and persecution. But its hands are tied."

Third-country removal Diplomatic assurances Chain refoulement Onward transfer Withholding of removal CAT Notice Access to counsel Manner of removal Restraint during transfer Jurisdiction

Caution The plaintiffs lost. The motion for a temporary restraining order and the motion for emergency interim relief were both denied, on the ground that the court lacked jurisdiction to grant the relief sought. Nothing in this decision was decided on the merits, and the passages quoted above are the court's observations, not its holdings. They carry weight because of who made them and what was before her, not because they bind anyone. The account of the flight, the straitjackets and Dema Camp is drawn from the plaintiffs' own allegations and declarations as the court recorded them. The court did not make findings on them. What the government did concede on the record, at the hearing, is separate and stronger: that the five cannot lawfully be returned to their home countries, that Ghana appears to be breaking its assurance, and that the United States cannot stop it. This decision was later set out at length and called deeply concerning by the court in Baltodano v. Bondi, 815 F. Supp. 3d 1191.

D.D.C. December 7, 2009 672 F. Supp. 2d 49; 2009 WL 4572732

Three Rwandan nationals, ethnic Hutus, had been held for two years by the Rwandan Patriotic Army at Kami camp, which they described as “an unofficial detention center to which only the RPA had access,” where they say they were subjected to “brutal physical and psychological torture.” Each confessed. Extradited to the United States in 2003 to stand trial, they succeeded in having those confessions suppressed as coerced and as products of torture, United States v. Karake, 443 F. Supp. 2d 8, 85-86 (D.D.C. 2006), and the indictment was dismissed in February 2007. In the removal proceedings that followed, “[t]he immigration court ordered that the plaintiffs be removed to Rwanda, but granted their applications for deferral of removal under the CAT.” Then, as the court records: “On August 25, 2009, ICE notified the plaintiffs that it was considering terminating their deferrals of removal based on diplomatic assurances the Department of State had received from Rwanda’s Chief Prosecutor and the Rwandan Minister of Justice that none of the plaintiffs would be tortured if removed to Rwanda.” A footnote adds that Rwanda also assured the Department of State that any prosecution would comply with Rwandan and international law “and that none of the plaintiffs’ previously coerced confessions would be used against them.” ICE gave them until 6 November 2009 to submit written evidence why the assurances should not be credited. They argued that the process denied due process because there was no hearing before a neutral and impartial decision-maker and no guarantee that they would receive the full record or be notified of a final decision. The court denied a preliminary injunction on ripeness grounds, no final agency decision having been made.

CAT deferral Termination of deferral Diplomatic assurances Due process Neutral decisionmaker Ripeness

Caution The court decided nothing about the reliability of Rwanda’s assurances or the lawfulness of terminating a CAT deferral. It held only that the claim was not yet ripe. Its closing footnote states: “The court appreciates the very real danger the plaintiffs may face if they are returned to Rwanda, and reiterates that this decision was made on ripeness grounds alone.” The government stipulated it would not remove the plaintiffs before 8 December 2009 and said it would not remove them sooner than thirty days after a final decision. Whether the deferrals were ultimately terminated, and whether these three men were removed, the Coalition is still investigating.

3d Cir. December 5, 2008 549 F.3d 235 Third country: None (removal to country of origin)

Precedential. The court held that the District Court lacked habeas jurisdiction and vacated its order, but that the court of appeals had jurisdiction over the petition for review, that the rule of non-inquiry did not bar review, and that the government had denied Khouzam due process. It rejected the argument that assurances from Egypt are categorically insufficient, leaving the question to individualized determination. On the merits: “It is obvious that Khouzam was not afforded notice and a full and fair hearing prior to his imminent removal on the basis of diplomatic assurances. In fact, Khouzam was afforded no notice and no hearing whatsoever.” The government had given him nothing but “a cursory three-line letter dated three months after the termination decision had been made,” and beyond its bare assertions the court found “no record supporting the reliability of the diplomatic assurances.” Because the termination order was invalid and he had been taken into custody on the strength of it, he had to be restored to his earlier terms of release. Remanding to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the court set out what due process requires before removal on assurances: notice, an opportunity to present evidence and argument challenging the reliability of the assurances and the government’s compliance with the regulations before a neutral and impartial decisionmaker, and an individualized determination on a record disclosed to the person.

Diplomatic assurances CAT deferral Termination without notice Fifth Amendment due process Rule of non-inquiry Habeas jurisdiction REAL ID Act section 1252(a)(4) Petition for review Order of supervision Remand to the BIA

Caution The court did not hold that Egypt’s assurances were unreliable. It held that Khouzam was entitled to a hearing at which to test them, and remanded for that hearing. It rejected the argument that assurances from a state with an egregious record of torture are categorically insufficient. Removal here was to the petitioner’s own country, not to a third country.

M.D. Pa. January 10, 2008 529 F. Supp. 2d 543; 2008 WL 98545 Third country: None (removal to country of origin)

The writ was granted, the Secretary of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate the court-ordered deferral of removal was vacated, and Khouzam was ordered released forthwith on the conditions of supervision that had been in place before his redetention. The court reached three conclusions. First, diplomatic assurances from states regarded as routinely engaging in torture, such as Egypt, do not per se violate the Convention Against Torture or the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act. Second, there was a substantial question of fact whether the government had complied with its own regulations governing removal on a diplomatic assurance. Third, and decisively, the government’s refusal to expose the Egyptian assurance to review by any impartial adjudicator denied due process: “At the core of due process are the requirements of notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” and neither was supplied. The court rejected the government’s position that the requisite opportunity to be heard was furnished by the habeas proceeding itself.

Diplomatic assurances CAT deferral Termination without notice Due process Notice and hearing Impartial adjudicator Compliance with regulations Release from custody Order of supervision

Caution Vacated on jurisdictional grounds. The Third Circuit held on 5 December 2008 that the District Court had no habeas jurisdiction over these claims and vacated this order, while reaching the same result on the merits by granting the petition for review. Cite the Third Circuit decision for the holding; this opinion remains the fuller statement of the reasoning and of the record. Removal here was to the petitioner’s own country, Egypt, not to a third country. The signed order carries a typographical error in its date line, reading “JANUARY, 2007” for 2008.

M.D. Pa. June 15, 2007 497 F. Supp. 2d 615; 2007 WL 1746367 Third country: None (removal to country of origin)

The court refused to dismiss the habeas petition and stayed removal pending the outcome of the proceeding. Khouzam had been released in February 2006 under an order of supervision, after eight years in custody, on a finding that there was no significant likelihood of his removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. When he reported to the ICE facility in York, Pennsylvania on 29 May 2007 as that order required, he was retaken into custody and handed a three-line letter from the Assistant Secretary for ICE stating that the Secretary of Homeland Security had terminated his deferral of removal to Egypt, effective four months earlier, on diplomatic assurances the government would not show him. Rejecting the government’s arguments that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction and that the petition raised non-justiciable political questions, the court held that Khouzam had presented justiciable issues falling within its habeas corpus jurisdiction, and that a stay should continue: granting one “to assure proper observance of the applicable law serves the public interest.”

Diplomatic assurances CAT deferral Termination without notice Redetention at a reporting appointment Order of supervision Habeas jurisdiction Political question Stay of removal

Caution Interim relief only. This was a ruling on a motion to dismiss and a stay application, not a final judgment. This is the first of two opinions in the same case; the merits were decided on 10 January 2008. Removal here was to the petitioner’s own country, Egypt, not to a third country. The Third Circuit later held that the District Court had no habeas jurisdiction over these claims and vacated the January 2008 order on that ground, while granting the same relief on the petition for review.