6th Cir. October 9, 2026 Third country: Ghana. The government planned to remove her there on 11 October 2026. The court records a State Department official’s declaration that Ghana “entered into an arrangement with the Department of State” to accept certain people, including her, and gave “assurances that aliens removed from the United States pursuant to this arrangement will not be subjected to persecution or torture in Ghana nor in any country they may be further transferred to.” She told the court that she had never visited Ghana and had no connections there.
Disposition Emergency motion for a stay of removal pending appeal denied.
The petitioner, a native and citizen of Nigeria, was ordered removed to Nigeria in 2013 by an immigration judge who at the same time granted her withholding of removal to that country. Detained when she reported in person on 21 September 2026, she was to be removed to Ghana on 11 October 2026 under the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of March 2025. The district court held that it lacked jurisdiction over her petition for a writ of mandamus and dismissed it, and she moved in the court of appeals for an emergency stay.
The court held “that Ojukwu has not shown a likelihood of success because her stay motion pursues the same claims that the Supreme Court held did not warrant an injunction,” and described her claims as “squarely controlled” by the Supreme Court’s stays in the D.V.D. class action. She did not dispute that she is a member of the class. The court accepted that “class claims do not always bar individual claims”, but held that the class suit precludes the same “pattern and practice” claim in an individual case, and that she “fails to explain why her unique facts would establish the district court’s jurisdiction even if the D.V.D. district court lacked jurisdiction over the class claims.”
On irreparable harm it found the evidence “(at most) in equipoise”: she cited “only dated or generalized statistics about Ghana’s generic country conditions”, while officials of Ghana “have credibly assured the Department of State that aliens like Ojukwu would not be tortured or persecuted in that country.” The court added: “A district court involuntarily forced her into a class action in a faraway venue and thereby undermined her ability to pursue her own equitable relief in a court closer to her Ohio home.”
Third-country removal
Stay of removal
D.V.D. class action
Class relief
Preclusion
Withholding of removal
Country-specific nature of withholding
Diplomatic assurances
Irreparable harm
Due process
Mandamus
Contrary authority
Caution A ruling on an emergency motion for a stay, not a decision of the appeal, which continues: on 14 October 2026 the court set the appellant’s brief for 23 November 2026 and the appellees’ for 23 December 2026. Whether she was removed to Ghana is not recorded on the appeal docket as read on 7 November 2026.
On the assurance, the court cites only the government’s declaration. The order does not mention D.A. v. Noem (D.D.C. 15 September 2025), recorded in this register, in which government counsel accepted that, on the plaintiffs’ allegations, Ghana appeared to be violating the assurances it had given about people sent there in September 2025.
The class counsel practice advisory of 21 October 2026 cites the order as 2026 WL 3032742 and argues that, because class members are not seeking the same relief as the class, district courts should not refuse to hear their individual habeas petitions because of the class action. The district court’s decision, Ojukwu v. Lynch (N.D. Ohio 26 September 2026), is described in the entry for Rascol v. Raycraft, recorded in this register, but is not entered separately.
S.D. Tex. February 13, 2026 Third country: Equatorial Guinea
Disposition Temporary restraining order of 18 January 2026 converted into a preliminary injunction. Respondents enjoined from transferring the petitioner outside the judicial district, or removing her to any third country, unless the government gives her at least ten days’ notice of the proposed country of removal and an opportunity to reopen her removal proceedings to seek fear-based protection as to that country. Bond waived.
The petitioner, a woman from Mauritania, was granted withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture on 28 July 2025, after an immigration judge found it more likely than not that she would be persecuted and tortured if returned to Mauritania. Neither the government nor the immigration judge ever identified another country to which she could be removed during her removal proceedings. On 17 January 2026 an employee of CoreCivic, the contractor that runs the Laredo Processing Center, told her that she would be moved to Louisiana for removal to a third country on 20 January 2026. She received no written notice. The court granted a temporary restraining order on 18 January 2026, the day she filed. The government then told the court that on or about 16 January 2026 she had been approved for removal to a “safe third country,” specifically Equatorial Guinea.
The court held that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g), (a)(5) and (b)(9) did not bar review, because she sought review not of the decision to execute her removal order but “of the process due to her under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause after that decision has been made.” It held the dispute ripe: her removal “was imminent at the time of Petitioner’s initial filing and continues to be imminent.”
On the merits it held that neither route under the March 2025 Guidance gives a meaningful opportunity to raise a fear claim: removal on diplomatic assurances without any individual assessment, and a fear screening by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services without an evidentiary hearing or review by an immigration judge. “Due process requires the Government to answer whether Ms. Mbaba specifically faces possible torture or persecution in Equatorial Guinea”, including whether removal there would lead to chain refoulement to Mauritania. The court concluded: “Thus, 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.”
It held that reopened removal proceedings before an immigration judge are the right vehicle, and that a discretionary motion to reopen is not enough, because “due process requires assurance that reopened proceedings will in fact take place.” It rejected as “patently unreasonable and impracticable” the government’s argument that she should have foreseen removal to any country in the world and raised every such fear in her original proceedings. It also held that the Mandamus Act allowed it to require notice and an opportunity to be heard before any removal.
On irreparable harm the court recorded, from the petitioner’s reply citing The Africa Report of 16 January 2026, that “Equatorial Guinea has reportedly refouled eight out of the nine third-country removees it has received under the new third country removal policy.” It found that “there is very good reason to believe that Equatorial Guinea will likewise immediately send Ms. Mbaba back to Mauritania and to the hereditary chattel slavery that she escaped from.”
Third-country removal
Notice
Diplomatic assurances
Chain refoulement
Withholding of removal
CAT deferral
Reopened removal proceedings
Due process
Jurisdiction 1252(g)
Jurisdiction 1252(a)(5)
Jurisdiction 1252(b)(9)
Ripeness
Transfer out of district
Preliminary injunction
Mandamus
Caution A preliminary injunction resting on likelihood of success, not a final judgment. The case was brought as a complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief and a petition for a writ of mandamus, not as a habeas petition.
The injunction no longer operates. On 20 May 2026 the court reiterated it when the government said it now intended to remove the petitioner to Cameroon; that order is recorded separately in this register. On 21 July 2026 the petitioner and the federal respondents filed a self-effectuating joint stipulation of dismissal, which notified the court that the case was dismissed without prejudice as moot, and on 24 July 2026 the court directed the clerk to terminate the case (ECF No. 34). The documents read do not say why the case became moot.
The same page of the order also contains the sentence “[r]eliance on such blanket assurances as a substitution for notice and the opportunity to be heard cannot comport with basic due process”. That is the court quoting Esmail v. Noem (C.D. Cal. 26 September 2025); the court’s own formulation is the sentence quoted above.