Decisions

U.S. September 29, 2026 Third country: Third countries generally. The class challenged the government’s guidance on third-country removals.

The Court granted the government’s application and stayed “The February 25, 2026 order and judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 1:25-cv-10676.” It treated the application as a petition for certiorari, granted it, and directed the parties to brief and argue: “(1) Whether the district court had jurisdiction over Respondents’ claims. (2) Whether the district court had authority to enter classwide declaratory relief and APA vacatur under 8 U. S. C. §1252(f)(1). (3) Whether the Government’s Guidance on third-country removals is unlawful under 8 U. S. C. §1231(b), the Due Process Clause, or FARRA/CAT and its implementing regulations. (4) Such other questions that the Government determines are appropriate for the proper disposition of the case.” The order states: “The stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.” It gives no reasons. The record before the Court included sworn declarations of class members, cited in the class’s opposition, describing chain refoulement from third countries. One is the declaration of an Iranian man holding withholding of removal, flown by ICE to Nicaragua in October 2025 and put on a flight to Tehran through Venezuela, who escaped in transit in Istanbul (district court ECF 233-18). The government’s application and reply do not mention that declaration.

D.V.D. class action Third-country removal Notice Section 1252(f)(1) Class relief Jurisdiction CAT Withholding of removal Stay pending appeal Chain refoulement

Caution An order granting a stay and certiorari, without reasons. It decides nothing on the merits; the questions are to be argued on 9 December 2026. According to the parties’ Supreme Court filings, the First Circuit had largely affirmed the district court’s judgment on 18 September 2026 (No. 26-1212) and dissolved its own stay pending appeal on 23 September 2026. The earlier stay of the April 2025 injunction, of 23 June 2025, is registered separately.

E.D. Cal. August 28, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 2547035 Third country: Mexico

The magistrate judge recommended granting the petition, finding nothing in the record to show that ICE gave the required informal interview on revoking the order of supervision, and that the government failed to carry its burden of changed circumstances because removal to Mexico under the standing arrangement depends on consent, which he refused at every service. She recommended release, a hearing before any re-detention, and an injunction barring third-country removal without fourteen days’ notice and an immigration judge hearing.

Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country designation Notice Due process Pre-deprivation hearing

Caution This is a findings and recommendation, not a decision of the court, and as of 7 September 2026 no order adopting or rejecting it had issued. It should not be cited as a final holding. Unpublished slip copy. It issued before the petitioner’s reply deadline had run and on an untimely government response, and the court expressly declined to reach his other claims. The petitioner is self-represented. His criminal history was acknowledged and held not to justify continued detention, a point a reviewing judge could weigh differently.

E.D. Cal. August 27, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 2532065 Third country: Mexico

The magistrate judge recommended granting the petition, finding that ICE revoked the order of supervision without the informal interview the regulations require, and failed to show changed circumstances making removal reasonably foreseeable, because removal to Mexico under the standing arrangement depends on the person’s consent, which he had repeatedly refused. She recommended release, a hearing before any re-detention, and an injunction barring third-country removal without fourteen days’ notice and an immigration judge hearing.

Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country designation Notice Due process Reasonable fear Pre-deprivation hearing

Caution This is a findings and recommendation by a magistrate judge, not a decision of the court. It was adopted in part by the district judge on 1 September 2026, who granted the petition and ordered immediate release, but refused as premature the recommended injunction against third-country removal. That order is the court’s final position and has its own entry in this register. Unpublished slip copy. The third-country analysis is largely a block quotation of A.A.M. v. Andrews, so the language about a full and fair hearing before a neutral adjudicator is A.A.M.’s, not this court’s.

C.D. Cal. August 24, 2026 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 190133

The subsequent-history line records that the writ of habeas corpus was granted, an injunction was granted, and judgment was entered.

Redetention Notice Withholding of removal

Caution Not read directly and not supplied; recorded only in the subsequent-history line of the printout of the February 26, 2026 order in the same case. No docket, judge, or terms are given for it.

S.D. Fla. August 21, 2026 Third country: Mexico

The revocation notice cited an unchanged file, an unchanged interview, and bedspace availability, and the claimed interview came more than four months late, so the re-detention violated the regulation; release ordered.

Redetention Notice Informal interview Prolonged detention (Zadvydas)

Caution The Zadvydas claim was held premature at 120 days because this court does not aggregate detentions, and the brief sets out the split on aggregation. The account of the March 9, 2026 bus trip toward the Mexican border is the petitioner's, credited as the record before the court on an unopposed point, not a judicial finding. No reporter or unofficial citation is printed in the brief.

D. Md. August 21, 2026 Third country: Guatemala (removal on 10 July 2026; Guatemalan officials refused him and handed him to Mexican officials to be returned to Mexico). He was later removed to Mexico itself, the country of protection, on 1 August 2026.

An immigration judge granted Doe deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture in July 2024, finding that he was more likely than not to be tortured by the government, or with its acquiescence, if returned to Mexico. The finding rested on his substantial assistance to the Department of Justice and his testimony against defendants affiliated with Mexican drug cartels. Released on an order of supervision in November 2024, he lived in Maryland until he was taken into custody at a routine ICE check-in in January 2026. The court recorded that “Without any notice,” on 10 July 2026 the government removed him to Guatemala; Guatemalan officials refused him and handed him to Mexican officials to be returned to Mexico, but a Mexican consular official, on learning of his protection, had him returned to the United States the same day. On about 15 or 16 July 2026 he was removed a second time, allegedly directly to Mexico, and again returned. On 21 July 2026 the government purportedly served a Notice of Termination of Deferral of Removal, stating that the Department of State had received diplomatic assurances from the Mexican government that he would not be tortured and that the Acting ICE Director and the Secretary of State had found them reliable. The notice “gave no other information or details about the diplomatic assurances,” and bore no Spanish translation although Doe does not speak or read English. The parties agreed that this form of termination “is extremely rare.” On 1 August 2026 he was deported to Mexico, where he has been in hiding. The court held that it had jurisdiction despite 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(4) and § 1252(g), because Doe challenged the process used to end his protection, not his removal order, and the route the government chose left no record for a court of appeals to review: “This Court cannot accept the nonsensical result that Doe is unable to obtain judicial review of these executive actions by virtue of the path to termination chosen by the Executive itself.” Adopting the due process analysis of Khouzam v. Attorney General (3d Cir. 2008), which the parties agreed is the only case to have addressed termination on diplomatic assurances, the court found that Doe “was afforded no notice and no hearing whatsoever,” and concluded that “the manner in which Defendants revoked Doe’s CAT Deferral likely violated his procedural due process rights, exceeding the Defendants’ lawful authority.” It took judicial notice of statements by United States officials, and of State Department travel warnings, that “seemingly contradict any diplomatic assurances that the Mexican government can control cartels’ unlawful actions and protect Doe from torture.” Finding the remaining factors met, the court stressed that “There is an immense public interest in ensuring that persons who risk their personal safety to assist the government in prosecuting wrongdoing are not placed in harm’s way by the very entity they assisted,” and, following Noem v. Abrego Garcia, ordered the government to facilitate his return.

CAT deferral Diplomatic assurances Termination without notice Due process Third-country removal Chain refoulement Jurisdiction Jurisdiction 1252(g) Judicial review Access to counsel Remedy

Caution Interim relief only: a temporary restraining order. Much of the account of the removals comes from the complaint and declarations, and the second removal is described as “allegedly” directly to Mexico. The court said an evidentiary hearing would be needed to find the facts about the process provided. It ruled on the process used, not on whether the assurances were reliable or the termination valid. The opinion’s record citations refer to the sealed original case, and the court said an amended version would issue once the pseudonymous refiling was complete. A later memorandum opinion of 14 September 2026 (Document 49) denied the government’s motion for reconsideration, converted the order into a preliminary injunction, recorded that Doe had been returned to the United States, and recorded the government’s new account that the termination notice was served on 1 August 2026, the day of his removal, rather than on 21 July 2026.

C.D. Cal. August 19, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 2434858 Third country: Mexico; a screening notice of 1 June 2026 recorded a finding that he had established it is more likely than not he would be persecuted in Mexico

The court held the petitioner was not subject to mandatory detention, his theft charge having been dismissed on completion of diversion, and that re-detaining him and revoking his order of supervision without a pre-deprivation hearing violated procedural due process. It ordered immediate release and entered a limited permanent injunction requiring seven days’ notice and a bond hearing before any re-detention, written notice and reopened proceedings before any third-country removal, and barring removal to Mexico outright.

Redetention Pre-deprivation hearing Due process Third-country designation Notice Withholding of removal Credible fear

Caution Unpublished slip copy. A final decision on the parties’ consent to a magistrate judge, not a recommendation, so no district-judge adoption was required. No subsequent history appears as of 7 September 2026. The court resolved the case on procedural due process and did not adjudicate the grounds concerning flight risk or conditions of detention, did not apply the substantive due process standards it set out, and did not reach an indefinite-detention analysis. The printed text contains an apparent drafting error describing removal to a country other than Cuba, which is language from a cited case and not this petitioner, and an inconsistent docket reference to the screening notice.

C.D. Cal. August 17, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 2395216 Third country: Mexico

The court granted the petition, holding that re-detaining a person who had complied with an order of supervision since 2018, at a scheduled check-in and without notice or a hearing, violated procedural due process, and ordered her immediate release. It entered a limited permanent injunction requiring at least seven days’ notice and a hearing before an immigration judge before any re-detention, and written notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond in reopened proceedings before any attempt to remove her to a country other than Guatemala.

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

Caution Unpublished slip copy. Decided by a magistrate judge on the parties’ full consent, so unlike the recommendations in this collection it is a final and appealable judgment. As of 7 September 2026 no subsequent history appeared, but the decision is recent enough that the appeal window and any post-judgment motions may still be open. The printed text carries several original typographical errors.

E.D. Cal. July 10, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 1999108 Third country: None identified; the third-country analysis is general and no destination was named

The magistrate judge recommended granting the petition, finding detention had passed the presumptively reasonable six months with no significant likelihood of removal, and that ICE revoked release without the notice and prompt informal interview the regulations require. He recommended release, an injunction against re-detention absent strict compliance, and an injunction against third-country removal without at least ten days’ notice and a meaningful opportunity to raise a fear-based claim before an immigration judge.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Due process Third-country designation Notice CAT

Caution This is a findings and recommendation, not a decision of the court, issued with a shortened seven-day objection period. It was ADOPTED IN PART AND REJECTED IN PART by the district judge on 21 July 2026, so parts of what is recommended here do not stand; the 21 July order must be read before this is relied on. Unpublished slip copy. The magistrate judge expressly declined to reach the claim that the detention hearing was constitutionally inadequate.

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.

C.D. Cal. May 26, 2026 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115713; 2026 WL 1471864

The court adjudged the revocation of the order of supervision and the re-detention unlawful and permanently enjoined re-detention without an individualized pre-detention hearing before a neutral arbiter and third-country removal without notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Redetention Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral

Caution Entered over objections after de novo review of a magistrate judge's report that is not in the supplied file, so the reasoning behind the 'neutral arbiter' requirement has not been read; the brief notes these requirements go further than any other order in the collection.

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.

E.D. Cal. April 27, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 1133268 Third country: None identified; the government said it was pursuing removal to China, but the court reached the third-country claim because ICE was operating under its third-country removal policy

The magistrate judge recommended granting the petition on the claims that re-detention breached the changed-circumstances requirement and amounted to unconstitutionally indefinite detention, China having repeatedly declined to issue travel documents, and that an earlier preliminary injunction be made permanent. Reaching the third-country claim, she recommended barring any third-country removal without twenty-one days’ written notice in a language the petitioner understands, at least ten days to raise a fear-based claim, a government motion to reopen if reasonable fear is shown, and at least fifteen days to seek reopening if it is not.

Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Due process Third-country designation Notice Reasonable fear CAT Jurisdiction

Caution This is a findings and recommendation, not a decision of the court, with a seven-day objection period. As of 7 September 2026 no order adopting it appeared, so the docket should be checked before it is treated as operative. Unpublished slip copy. The detention holdings are not independent analysis: the magistrate judge rests on the district judge’s earlier preliminary injunction reasoning because the evidentiary record had not changed. Three of the claims were not reached. The printed text repeatedly miscites the governing regulation.

D. Nev. April 24, 2026 Third country: None identified in the order.

Mr. Hassan was admitted to the United States in 2006 as a Sudanese refugee “fleeing genocide.” He was ordered removed on 8 February 2021 because of criminal convictions, but the immigration judge deferred his removal to Sudan under the Convention Against Torture “because it is likely that he will be tortured if returned to that country.” He was held for about 90 days and released because the government could not carry out his removal. On 15 January 2026 he was arrested in Weber, Utah, for riding a train without a ticket; four days later ICE took him into custody and moved him to the Nevada Southern Detention Center. The court counted his 2021 detention together with his 2026 detention, holding that “the government cannot simply restart the six-month clock whenever it chooses to re-detain him.” It found the government’s response “woefully insufficient to show that there is a significant likelihood of Hassan’s removal at all, let alone in the reasonably foreseeable future,” and granted the petition on that ground. It also held that ICE had given him neither notice of the reasons for revoking his release nor an informal interview: “It’s undisputed that those regulations were not followed here.” On third-country removal, the court described an ICE policy under which no notice or opportunity to be heard is given where “the United States has received diplomatic assurances from the country of removal that [noncitizens] removed from the United States will not be persecuted or tortured” and the Department of State deems them credible, and which otherwise allows removal on as little as six hours’ notice without asking whether the person fears removal. It held that where assurances are relied on, “Notice, let alone an opportunity to be heard, is not available to a noncitizen in that situation,” and that the notice route “does not comport with the fundamental requirements of due process.” Because removal to Sudan is deferred, the court found that any removal “will likely be effectuated under its unconstitutional third-country-removal policy.” It barred removal to any country not listed on his removal order unless the government first meets the requirements the order sets out: notice, asking whether he fears persecution or harm in the designated country and recording the answer in writing, telling him that he may seek protection by a motion to reopen, and adequate time to prepare and file it.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Revocation of supervision Informal interview Compliance with regulations Third-country removal Notice Diplomatic assurances Due process CAT deferral Jurisdiction 1252(g) Changed circumstances

Caution The ruling on the third-country policy concerns the policy as described in the record (ECF No. 8-5); no particular third country had been designated for him. The court did not reach his separate constitutional challenge to prolonged detention or his claim under the Administrative Procedure Act. The government filed its response late, and the court accepted it. After the order, the docket shows a motion to enforce filed on 27 April 2026 and a minute order on it on 1 May 2026, which have not been reviewed.

W.D. Wash. April 15, 2026 Third country: Canada, Mexico or the United Kingdom. The government said ICE was determining whether any of the three would accept him; it also said the petitioner had asked to be removed to Canada or Mexico.

The petitioner entered the United States in December 2005 at the age of eleven. Earlier in his removal case an immigration judge found him not competent to represent himself and a qualified representative was assigned. On 11 September 2025 an immigration judge ordered him removed to Iran and granted him deferral of removal to Iran under Article III of the Convention Against Torture. He was detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. According to the government, immediately after the removal order ICE began “efforts to identify a third country for Petitioner’s removal,” and was “currently determining whether Canada, Mexico, or the United Kingdom, will accept Petitioner.” The government also said he had refused to cooperate with removal efforts and had received multiple failure to depart warnings. The government acknowledged that the presumptively reasonable six-month period had lapsed. The court held that the government’s statements about a third country “alone do not automatically render Petitioner’s removal” reasonably foreseeable, and that the government did not provide “any specific evidence or other information on what steps they have taken, or imminently intend to take, to effectuate Petitioner’s removal and ensure that he is not indefinitely detained.” On cooperation, it found that the government did “fail to identify how Petitioner has purportedly refused to cooperate with ICE, let alone how such a refusal has contributed to the delay.” The court ordered release within 72 hours, declining to prohibit GPS monitoring. It barred re-detention “unless and until he is provided with adequate notice and a hearing before an immigration court to determine whether re-detention is appropriate,” and barred removal to a third country “unless and until he is provided with adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond, in accordance with all applicable laws.” Because it granted relief on prolonged detention, it did not reach the arguments on procedural due process, fear of removal and “punitive third-country banishment.”

CAT deferral Third-country removal Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Pre-deprivation hearing Notice Travel documents

Caution A district court decision, binding only on the parties. The court decided the petition on prolonged detention alone and expressly did not reach the claims on procedural due process, fear of removal or punitive third-country removal. The third-country protection it ordered is adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond; unlike several other orders from this district in the register, it does not specify reopened proceedings before an immigration judge. The statements about the petitioner’s refusal to cooperate are the government’s, and the court found them unsupported. The copy has no electronic filing stamp; the date given is the date the judge signed the order. The court’s docket heading on the copy reads “Babakhanlou v. Bondi et al”, but the caption of the order names Todd Blanche as first respondent.

D. Nev. April 7, 2026 Third country: None identified in the order.

Mr. Alvarez Guerra was born and raised in Cuba and has no citizenship or lawful immigration status in any other country. He entered the United States on 21 June 2023 using the CBP One app and applied for residency in July 2024. He was arrested on 10 March 2025 and has been detained since. On 21 May 2025 an immigration judge denied asylum but granted withholding of removal from Cuba; the Board of Immigration Appeals denied his asylum appeal on 22 January 2026, when the removal order became final. The government argued that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g), § 1252(a)(5) and § 1252(b)(9) barred review. Following Ibarra-Perez v. United States (9th Cir. 2025), the court held that § 1252(g) “does not divest this Court of jurisdiction over Petitioner’s request to prohibit his removal to a third country without sufficient notice and an opportunity to raise fear-based claims,” and called the argument that his only avenue was a petition for review in the court of appeals “patently false.” The government did not respond to the third-country claim. The court held that the petitioner “has a due process right to receive meaningful notice and opportunity to present a fear-based claim to an immigration judge before DHS deports him to a third country,” and granted that ground without reaching the claim under the Administrative Procedure Act. The parties agreed that the 90-day removal period would end on 22 April 2026, and the court held: “Because detention is mandatory during the removal period, Petitioner’s detention is currently lawful.” His claim that he had not received a custody review was premature for the same reason. The court denied release, declined to stay the case, and closed it so that he may file a new habeas case later.

Third-country removal Notice Due process Withholding of removal Reopened removal proceedings Jurisdiction 1252(g) Jurisdiction 1252(a)(5) Jurisdiction 1252(b)(9) Ripeness

Caution The order was signed on 7 April 2026 and entered on the docket, with the judgment, on 8 April 2026. The detention claims were denied without prejudice only because the removal period had not yet ended. No particular third country had been designated, and the order does not address diplomatic assurances.

E.D. Cal. March 27, 2026 832 F. Supp. 3d 1071; 2026 WL 849579 Third country: Mexico

The court granted a temporary restraining order in full, finding the petitioner likely to succeed both on her claim that ICE revoked her release without the changed-circumstances determination required by 8 C.F.R. section 241.13(i)(2), there being no evidence that travel documents had been sought or that Mexico had agreed to accept her, and on her due process claim that she could not be removed to Mexico without notice and an opportunity to present a fear-based claim to a neutral adjudicator.

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

Caution Interim relief on a likelihood-of-success standard, not a final ruling; the matter was referred onward to the assigned magistrate judge. The court expressly rejected part of the petitioner’s regulatory argument, finding she had not shown a failure to comply with the notice and informal-interview requirements; relief rested on section 241.13(i)(2) alone. The opinion contains two apparent typographical date errors.

E.D. Cal. March 26, 2026 833 F. Supp. 3d 1092; 2026 WL 849861. Findings and recommendations 10 March 2026, order adopting them 26 March 2026. Third country: None identified. The injunction is prospective.

A man ordered removed to Vietnam in 1998, released by a federal court in 2000 because there was no reasonable likelihood of removal, and living under an order of supervision since then, was taken into immigration custody in July 2025 on the day he was due to be paroled from a state sentence. He filed a habeas petition himself, without a lawyer, after his request for appointed counsel was refused. He won on every ground he raised. The magistrate judge recommended, and the district judge adopted, an order releasing him immediately on his previous conditions, requiring the government to hand back his identification, passport, work permit and social security card at release, and permanently barring the government from revoking his supervision again without following 8 C.F.R. 241.13(i) and due process. The order also set out, in numbers, what the government must do before it may remove him to any third country: a meaningful opportunity and at least ten days to raise a fear-based claim; if he shows a reasonable fear, the government must move to reopen his removal proceedings; and if he does not, a meaningful opportunity and at least fifteen days to seek reopening himself. On the punitive question the court found that, to the extent the policy deliberately seeks to remove people to countries where they will be imprisoned on arrival, it is punitive and violates due process, following Baltodano v. Bondi. It reached that finding on the petitioner's uncontested allegations, and explained why they were uncontested: the government did not address them, and under Rule 8(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure an allegation that is not denied is admitted. The same silence appears in Nguyen v. Scott, Abubaka v. Bondi and Baltodano v. Bondi, where courts recorded that the government argued only that the question was foreclosed and never answered it on the merits. The findings also record the state of D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security as at 10 March 2026: the District of Massachusetts had set the third-country removal policy aside as unlawful on 25 February 2026 and held that class members have a right to meaningful notice before removal to any third country and a meaningful opportunity to raise a country-specific claim against it; that judgment was stayed until 12 March 2026 or until the First Circuit ruled on a stay motion; and an appeal was pending.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Revocation of supervision Third-country removal Notice Reopened removal proceedings Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing Rule 8(b)(6) admission Self-represented petitioner D.V.D. class action

Caution The punitive finding rests on allegations the government never answered, treated as admitted under Rule 8(b)(6). That is a rule of pleading, not a finding on evidence, and the decision says so. It is a description of what happens when the government declines to contest a claim, and it would carry less weight against a government that had. This is a district court decision and binds only the parties. The petitioner had serious convictions, including a sentence of twenty-five years to life, and still obtained the injunction, because the protection does not depend on the record of the person invoking it. The account of D.V.D. above is the state of that case as the court recorded it on 10 March 2026, not as at today. Anyone relying on it should check where the appeal now stands.

M.D. Fla. March 20, 2026 2026 WL 787639 Third country: Mexico

Because ICE gave written notice and an informal interview, the petitioner received what the Fifth Amendment requires, and his Zadvydas claim was premature at four months; the petition was denied.

Redetention Notice Informal interview Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Jurisdiction 1252(g) Jurisdiction 1252(b)(9)

Caution Denied without prejudice to refiling after six months. This is a different petitioner from Chavez Barrios v. Ripa and the brief warns that the two Barrios cases must be kept separate in every list.

1st Cir. March 16, 2026

The court granted the government’s emergency motion for a stay pending appeal of the district court’s 25 February 2026 judgment setting aside the third-country removal policy, so that the judgment does not take effect while the appeal proceeds. Judge Montecalvo would have denied the stay. The order sets an expedited briefing schedule and directs the parties to address two questions: the significance of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e) for the government’s contention that the district court lacked authority to set aside the March 2025 guidance, and whether the appeal as to class members ineligible for statutory withholding under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) can be resolved without reaching procedural due process under the Fifth Amendment. The court stated it intends to hold oral argument soon after briefing.

Notice Third-country designation Class relief Jurisdiction Stay pending appeal

Caution A stay order, not a decision on the merits. It leaves the district court’s reasoning intact but unenforceable while the appeal is pending. The appeal remained live as of 1 September 2026, when the appellees filed a citation of supplemental authorities under Fed. R. App. P. 28(j). The First Circuit dissolved this stay on 23 September 2026, after largely affirming the judgment on 18 September 2026. The Supreme Court then stayed the judgment on 29 September 2026.

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.

C.D. Cal. February 26, 2026 2026 WL 855153

The boilerplate notice of changed circumstances did not justify revoking supervision; the court ordered immediate release and enjoined removal to Mexico or any third country and transfer out of the district.

Redetention Notice Withholding of removal Transfer out of district

Caution Temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on a preliminary record; the government stated it had no opposition argument to present; a final judgment in the same case is recorded for August 24, 2026 and was not supplied.

C.D. Cal. February 26, 2026

Granting a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to a petitioner who filed pro se, the court ordered Respondents “to immediately release Petitioner from custody and restore him to the status quo prior to his detention by reinstating his supervision,” and enjoined them “from removing Petitioner to Mexico or any third country or transferring him from the Central District of California pending adjudication of his Petition.” The court applied 8 C.F.R. § 241.13(i)(2), under which ICE may re-detain a person released on an order of supervision only “if, on account of changed circumstances, [ICE] determines that there is a significant likelihood that the alien may be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future,” and § 241.13(i)(3), which requires that the person “be notified of the reasons for revocation of his or her release” and be given an initial informal interview promptly after return to custody. The notice given here said only that “there are changed circumstances in your case.” The court found that the petitioner could not be expected to “respond to the reasons for revocation stated in the notification” when the notice stated no reasons. Respondents did not contest the allegations, stating: “At this time, Respondents do not have an opposition argument to present.” The bond requirement was waived.

Order of supervision Revocation Redetention Third-country designation Notice

Caution An unreported district court order. The petitioner is a Mexican national who had been on an order of supervision; the order records prior arrests and convictions, which are not summarised here. The court cited Roble v. Bondi, Chavez Barrios v. Ripa, Nguyen v. Hyde, Tran v. Baker, Zadori v. Noem and Diaz v. Kaiser; the first two are registered separately in this collection and the remainder are not, because they have not been read directly.

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. The First Circuit largely affirmed the judgment on 18 September 2026 (No. 26-1212) and dissolved its stay pending appeal on 23 September 2026. On 29 September 2026 the Supreme Court stayed the order and judgment and granted certiorari (No. 26-426), with argument set for December 2026; Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson would have denied the stay. That order is registered separately.

E.D. Cal. February 25, 2026 Investigating. No reporter citation established. Third country: No third country was ever identified by the government. The injunction runs against removal to any of them without a fear hearing first.

Sam Sarfarzi-Esfahari had a final order of removal to Iran dating from 8 October 2004, deferral of removal under the Convention against Torture, and had been living under an Order of Supervision. He was re-detained. The court held that re-detaining him under the written policy he challenged violated due process, granted the petition, and ordered a bond hearing within fourteen days at which the government would have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he was a flight risk or a danger, failing which he was to be released. It separately barred the government from removing him to any third country without first giving him an individualised opportunity to say that he feared that country. On the question whether a challenge to a written policy is ripe before any particular third country has been named, the court held that it is, quoting the Ninth Circuit: where the harm alleged is directly traceable to a written policy there is an implicit likelihood of its repetition in the immediate future.

Third-country removal CAT deferral CAT Order of supervision Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Notice Due process Standing Ripeness Bond hearing Burden of proof Compliance with regulations ICE policy of 9 July 2025

Caution A district court decision. It binds the parties to it and nobody else. The relief has two halves and they are not the same: the detention half was granted in a narrower form than the magistrate judge had recommended, because the district judge ordered a hearing rather than immediate release. Note also the date. A document of 26 January 2026 in this case is findings and recommendations by a magistrate judge, which is a proposal and not an order. The operative decision is the order of 25 February 2026 adopting it in part. Citing the January date as the grant of relief would be wrong.

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. February 3, 2026 818 F. Supp. 3d 1235; 2026 WL 408098 Third country: None identified. The government was seeking removal to Vietnam.

A lawful permanent resident admitted in March 1995, ordered removed to Vietnam in March 2008 and released on an order of supervision in April 2009 because the government could not obtain travel documents, was re-detained in June 2025. The court ordered his immediate release. It recorded that the government had failed to remove him in almost eighteen years, that seven months after re-detaining him it had still not sent a travel document request to Vietnam, and that its declaration described how the process works in general but said nothing about how it would work in his case. On the reasons given for re-detaining him the court was blunt. The government said he was a threat to public safety. His most recent conviction was six years earlier, and the court called it incomprehensible that immigration authorities would decide six years later that his re-detention was warranted on that basis. The government also said he could be removed quickly. Seven months without a travel document request made that justification implausible. On the process used, the court found no document supporting the claim that notice was given at re-detention, no mention of the required informal interview at that time, and a corrected revocation letter served more than two months later, which could in no way be deemed timely. The court then went further than the regulations. Even assuming full compliance with them, it held, those limited procedures do not provide the process due under the Fifth Amendment, following E.A.T.-B. v. Wamsley, 795 F. Supp. 3d 1316. It ordered that the government may not re-detain him without first giving him notice and an opportunity to be heard before an immigration judge. The government argued the third-country claims were not ripe because it was trying to remove him to Vietnam. The court rejected that. Little in the government's own materials suggested Vietnam was likely to issue travel documents, and that, taken with the policy itself and what the court described as the recent third-country removals of hundreds of immigrants, gave rise to an imminent threat. On the merits the court found no basis to deviate from Baltodano, Abubaka and Nguyen v. Scott, and ordered that he not be removed to any country other than Vietnam without notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond in reopened removal proceedings before an immigration judge, or to any country where he is likely to face imprisonment or harm. The government offered no substantive response at all to the claim that the programme is punitive.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Revocation of supervision Ripeness Third-country removal Notice Reopened removal proceedings Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing Government silence on the merits

Caution A district court decision, binding only on the parties, and decided by a magistrate judge. Two features are worth holding onto. First, the government again offered no substantive answer to the punitive claim. That silence now appears in Nguyen v. Scott, Abubaka v. Bondi, Baltodano v. Bondi, Pham v. Warden and this case. In Pham a court treated the equivalent silence as an admission under Rule 8(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Second, courts in this district do not agree about re-detention. This court ordered that there be no re-detention without a hearing before an immigration judge. Five weeks later, in Saadhom v. Bondi, another judge of the same court refused that exact request, holding she could not conclude that due process requires a pre-detention hearing before an immigration judge in every case. Both decisions stand. The punitive analysis this decision follows originates in Nguyen v. Scott, decided at the preliminary injunction stage on 21 August 2025 and voluntarily dismissed by its petitioner the following month after an agreement between the parties, so it never reached a merits decision. That does not make the findings wrong, and five courts have now adopted them, but anyone relying on this line should know where it begins. The court also recorded, in a footnote, that the government's third-country removal policy was never provided to it in this case. It worked from the text set out in Nguyen v. Scott.

W.D. Wash. January 14, 2026 Third country: None identified in the order. The government said ICE may pursue removal to a third country if Iran does not issue a travel document, without naming one.

The petitioner came to the United States as a refugee from Iran in 2001 and later became a lawful permanent resident. After criminal convictions in Oregon he was ordered removed to Iran on 11 September 2014, and was released on an order of supervision in December 2014 because “ICE was unable to obtain travel documents to Iran or a third country.” He remained on release, reporting regularly to ICE, until 9 July 2025, when he was taken into custody at an in-person check-in at the Portland ICE facility. He said he was told he was arrested because the United States had recently bombed Iran. The ICE declaration said removal had become significantly likely; the court recorded that the officer “offers no explanation as to how this determination was made or the basis for it.” ICE had sent a travel document request to Iran in July 2025 and followed it up in November 2025, with no response to either. The petitioner produced an ICE document from November 2024 listing Iran as an “uncooperative” country. The court held that the government did not explain how “these two apparently unsuccessful attempts to communicate with Iranian authorities” showed any likelihood of removal, and that “The vague suggestion that ICE might pursue removal to an unspecified third country at some future time does nothing to demonstrate that there is a significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.” The court rejected the government’s argument that it should decline the third-country claims because the petitioner was likely a member of the class in D.V.D. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, adopting the analysis in Nguyen v. Scott as Baltodano v. Bondi and Abubaka v. Bondi had done. The government offered no substantive argument on the merits. Following those decisions and Aden v. Nielsen, the court held him entitled to an order that he not be removed to a third country “without notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard in reopened removal proceedings.” It recorded that the government’s current policy “has not been provided to the Court in this action.” On the claim that third-country removal is punitive, the court recorded that the government had “not provided any substantive response to this claim.” Relying on Nguyen v. Scott, Baltodano, Abubaka and Hambarsonpour v. Bondi, it concluded that “Respondents’ current practice of third country removals paired with imprisonment violates due process,” and enjoined removal “to any third country where he is likely to face imprisonment or harm.”

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Revocation of supervision Travel documents Third-country removal D.V.D. class action Notice Reopened removal proceedings Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing

Caution A district court decision by a magistrate judge, binding only on the parties. The court did not reach the claims that the re-detention itself violated procedural and substantive due process. The finding on the punitive nature of third-country removal was adopted from Nguyen v. Scott, Baltodano v. Bondi and Abubaka v. Bondi; it was not made on evidence about a destination specific to this petitioner, no third country had been named, and the government’s policy was not before the court.

C.D. Cal. December 30, 2025 Slip Copy; 2025 WL 4061564 Third country: None identified

The court granted a temporary restraining order, finding the petitioner likely to succeed on his claim that ICE revoked a twenty-year order of supervision without the changed circumstances the regulations require and without the informal interview they require, and ordered his immediate release and reinstatement of the prior order of supervision. It rejected his indefinite-detention claim, holding he had offered no affirmative evidence that removal to Vietnam was not reasonably foreseeable.

Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Due process Notice

Caution NOT A THIRD-COUNTRY REMOVAL CASE. No third country was designated; the removal at issue was to Vietnam, the country named in the removal order, and no fear-based third-country claim is discussed. It is included because it supplies the changed-circumstances and informal-interview standards that the third-country re-detention cases in this collection rely on. Beyond that: a temporary restraining order only, on a likelihood-of-success standard; the second application drew no opposition, and two earlier applications had been denied. The same order set a show-cause hearing on a preliminary injunction, whose outcome is not in this document. The petitioner lost on his indefinite-detention claim.

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.

W.D. Wash. December 15, 2025 Third country: None identified in the order. The government was seeking a travel document from Vietnam.

The petitioner, a citizen of Vietnam admitted as a lawful permanent resident in 1990, was ordered removed to Vietnam in April 2006 and placed on an order of supervision in January 2008 because ICE could not obtain travel documents from Vietnam. There was no indication that he failed to comply with his conditions, but his supervision was revoked and he was arrested on 5 August 2025. The court recorded that he “was apparently swept back into custody during an ICE surge in immigrant re-detentions.” He had been detained for just over four months, within the six-month period treated as presumptively reasonable, but the court held the presumption rebuttable and found his removal not reasonably foreseeable. It found “no indication that respondents made an individualized determination that Mr. Wana, as opposed to a generic Vietnamese immigrant, was likely to be removed in a reasonable period of time,” and that he “is of mixed parentage, has no documentation verifying his Vietnamese identity, has two criminal convictions, and has no family, connections, or resources to assist his return to Vietnam.” The government’s declaration was held inadmissible because it was not subscribed under penalty of perjury and because the deportation officer showed no personal knowledge of agreements between the two countries. On the re-detention, ICE had given notice and an informal interview, which “seems to be all that is required by 8 C.F.R. § 241.13(i)(3).” Following E.A.T.-B. v. Wamsley, the court held that “Those meager procedures do not, however, provide the process due under the Fifth Amendment.” The government argued the third-country claims were not ripe because ICE was seeking travel documents to Vietnam. The court held that ICE’s internal memorandum of 9 July 2025 on third-country removals, the likelihood that he would not be issued travel documents to Vietnam, and “the recent third-country deportations of hundreds of immigrants, including pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants,” gave rise to “an imminent threat that Mr. Wana will face third-country removal.” Applying Aden v. Nielsen, it required reopened removal proceedings before any third-country removal. Adopting the reasoning of Nguyen v. Scott, the court found “that the government is intentionally removing noncitizens to countries with which they have no connection, often in contravention of the governing statute and regulations, and knowing that they will be subject to imprisonment or other punishment.” It prohibited removal “to any country where he is likely to face imprisonment or other punishment upon arrival.”

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Revocation of supervision Compliance with regulations Informal interview Due process Pre-deprivation hearing Travel documents Ripeness Third-country removal ICE policy of 9 July 2025 Notice Reopened removal proceedings Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing

Caution A district court decision, binding only on the parties. The punitive finding was made by adopting the reasoning of Nguyen v. Scott, not on evidence about a destination specific to this petitioner, and no third country had been named. The court held that the petitioner had not proven a violation of the re-detention regulations themselves; relief on re-detention rests on due process. In a footnote the court said it disagreed with cases holding that the six-month period runs from the final removal order whether or not the person is in custody.

E.D. Cal. December 4, 2025 815 F. Supp. 3d 1124; 2025 WL 3485219 Third country: Cameroon

The court held it retained habeas jurisdiction despite section 1252(g) and the pending D.V.D. class action, and that the petitioner was likely to succeed on his due process claim because the Third Country Removal Policy gave him no way to have a negative fear determination by a USCIS officer reviewed by an immigration judge. It enjoined removal to Cameroon or any other third country until he has a meaningful opportunity to present his fear claim before an immigration judge, holding that a discretionary motion to reopen is not an adequate substitute.

Third-country designation Notice Reasonable fear Withholding of removal CAT Due process Jurisdiction Class action

Caution Interim relief only: a temporary restraining order granted in part on a likelihood-of-success standard, not a final judgment. Two of the three requests were treated as moot after the government gave notice and conducted a screening interview during briefing. The motion to dismiss and a separate Zadvydas motion were left unresolved. A further order in the same case dated 19 December 2025 is not part of the document read.

W.D. Wash. December 4, 2025 Final order 4 Dec 2025: 815 F. Supp. 3d 1191; 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 250760; 2025 WL 3484769. Preliminary injunction 7 Nov 2025: 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220311; 2025 WL 3123991. Earlier order 23 Oct 2025: 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 209241; 2025 WL 2987766. Third country: Any third country where imprisonment was likely

Decided in two stages by Judge Lasnik. On 7 November 2025 the court granted a preliminary injunction on the notice and procedure claim, but refused the punitive claim, holding that the record before it lacked the specificity and examples regarding third-country imprisonment that were present in Nguyen v. Scott. On 4 December 2025, on a fuller record, the court granted the habeas petition, ordered release on conditions, and held that the practice of third-country removal paired with imprisonment is intended to be punitive and violates due process under Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 236-38 (1896) and Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693-94 (2001). Wong Wing struck down a provision of the Chinese Exclusion Act imposing imprisonment at hard labour before removal, holding that Congress may expel but may not add infamous punishment without a trial by jury, and distinguishing detention while awaiting deportation from punishment. Adopting the formulation used four days earlier in Hambarsonpour v. Bondi, the court ordered the government not to remove the petitioner to any third country where he is likely to face imprisonment or harm. The petitioner held deferral of removal to Nicaragua under the Convention against Torture, had been detained about twenty-four months, and the government had not requested travel documents from any third country. Two further passages matter. The court set out at length the account given in D.A. v. Noem, in which Judge Chutkan of the District of Columbia described five people who held withholding or deferral of removal being woken in the middle of the night at an ICE facility, shackled, put aboard a United States military cargo plane and flown to Ghana, a country none had any connection to, and taken to Dema Camp, described as a remote open-air detention facility surrounded by armed military guards. Judge Chutkan wrote that the case was "not an outlier" but part of what appeared to be "a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government's legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly." Judge Lasnik called that account deeply concerning. Second, the court declined to go further. It recorded the petitioner's concern that the government is using third states as bridge countries to send people onward to the very country a United States immigration court has barred removal to, said it shared that concern, but found no sufficiently clear evidence of punitive intent on that record. It noted that the argument could be made in the reopened removal proceedings its own order required.

Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing Infamous punishment Third-country removal Fifth Amendment due process Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) CAT CAT deferral Notice Reopened removal proceedings

Caution The government appealed on 30 January 2026 and then withdrew the appeal. On 7 April 2026 the Ninth Circuit granted the appellant's own motion for voluntary dismissal under Rule 42(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and ordered that the dismissal order serve as the mandate. No. 26-10166, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 10166. The judgment was never reviewed on its merits and was never reversed. The injunction stands, and the government chose not to test it on appeal. The punitive holding in this line of cases traces back to Nguyen v. Scott, decided on 21 August 2025. This opinion records that Nguyen was voluntarily dismissed by its petitioner the following month after an agreement between the parties, and so never reached a merits decision. The findings that Abubaka, Hambarsonpour and this case all rest on were therefore made at the preliminary injunction stage of a case that was then settled. That does not make them wrong, and three courts have since adopted them on their own records, but anyone relying on this line should know where it begins. Note also the sequence within this case: the same judge refused the punitive claim in November for want of specific evidence about imprisonment in destination countries, and granted it in December once that evidence was supplied. The petitioner had twenty-four convictions and still obtained the injunction, because the protection does not depend on the record of the person invoking it. The court's refusal to find punitive intent in the use of bridge countries is a limit on the decision and is recorded above rather than left out.

D.N.M. December 4, 2025 Third country: In 2025 the government asked El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Peru to accept him; Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Peru declined. It also contacted ICE’s Middle East/East Africa Removal Division. Several countries, not named, declined in 2016 and 2017. The court recorded that at least five countries declined to accept him between 2016 and 2025.

The petitioner, a citizen of Mexico, was ordered removed to Mexico on 26 May 2016 and at the same time granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, “based on testimony and evidence that his life would be in danger if he returned to Mexico.” The government held him while it sought a third country and, after several countries declined, released him on an order of supervision on 9 March 2017. He missed an ICE appointment on 1 March 2023. On 14 February 2025 he was arrested at a Border Patrol checkpoint in New Mexico and detained at the Otero County Processing Center while the government again sought a third country. In June 2025 his former counsel asked to drop the deferral so he could be removed to Mexico; an immigration judge granted reopening and termination on 17 September 2025 without addressing his later motion to withdraw that request, and his appeal is pending. The court recorded that “the parties agreed that Petitioner’s CAT deferral remains legally operative during the pendency of the BIA appeal.” The court rejected the government’s argument that 8 U.S.C. 1252(g) and (b)(9) barred review: “The government’s detention of Petitioner lacks the direct link to his removal proceedings or to the execution of his removal order to fall under the ambit of § 1252(g) or § 1252(b)(9).” It counted the four months he spent in detention in 2016 and 2017 toward the six-month period under Zadvydas v. Davis, stating that it “is disinclined to allow such gamesmanship by the government.” On the prospect of removal, the court found: “The government has also not been able to identify a third country to accept Petitioner.” It added that “between 2016 and 2025, at least five countries have declined to accept him,” and that even if a country agreed, “Petitioner may be entitled to notice and an opportunity to seek protection from removal, further prolonging his detention should he be allowed to remain in custody.” It held: “Because Petitioner has been detained more than six months and his removal is not reasonably foreseeable, his ongoing detention violates the INA.” It excused the failure to seek administrative review under 8 C.F.R. 241.13. The court did not decide whether the revocation of his supervision was lawful, but noted: “The government has provided no information about who made the decision to revoke Petitioner’s Order of Supervision, and whether it complied with § 241.4(l)(2) such that no notice or hearing was required.”

CAT deferral Third-country removal Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Redetention Revocation of supervision Order of supervision Jurisdiction 1252(g) Notice Informal interview

Caution Release rests on prolonged detention under Zadvydas alone. The court expressly did not decide whether the arrest and the revocation of supervision without notice or an interview were lawful, and it did not grant the requested order requiring notice and an opportunity to seek protection before any removal to a third country. The deferral was the subject of a pending appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals; the government argued that he would already have been removed to Mexico if not for that appeal. The court’s docket text records that the main document was replaced on 5 December 2025 at chambers’ request; the copy read is the court’s copy of Doc. 30, filed 4 December 2025, as published on govinfo.gov, and it matches the web printout on the site in substance.

W.D. Wash. November 21, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 229603; 2025 WL 3251155 Third country: None. The designated country of removal was France.

A man born in France in 1992 to Iranian refugee parents, brought to the United States at the age of nine and ordered removed to France in 2014, was held in immigration detention for more than eleven months while the government said repeatedly that French travel documents would issue soon. The court ordered his immediate release. It found the government had offered nothing beyond assertions, and it recorded months of inactivity on the file, including a failure to follow up until the French Embassy made contact some three months after the first approach. The court enjoined removal to any third country without notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond in reopened removal proceedings. It agreed with Nguyen v. Scott and Abubaka v. Bondi that a voluntary promise by the government, even one carrying twenty-four hours of advance notice, does not protect the statutory and due process rights at stake. On the punitive question the court said it found no reason to deviate from Abubaka, and agreed with its holding that the practice of third-country removal paired with imprisonment is intended to be punitive and violates due process under Wong Wing v. United States (1896) and Zadvydas v. Davis (2001). The order it entered is worded more broadly than the one in Abubaka: the government may not remove him to a third country where he is likely to face "imprisonment or harm." The order describes the third-country removal programme itself as unconstitutionally punitive.

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country removal Notice Reopened removal proceedings Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing Delay in travel documents

Caution A decision of a single district court, binding only on the parties. It is the second decision in the same district, by a different judge, to reach the punitive holding, and it adopts that holding rather than reasoning to it independently: the underlying analysis was done in Nguyen v. Scott and in Abubaka v. Bondi four days earlier. The court treated the question as settled enough within the district that it found no reason to deviate. That is how a line of district decisions hardens, and it is not a ruling by any appellate court. The commercial reporter carried a positive signal on the decision as of September 2026. The punitive analysis this decision adopts was made in Nguyen v. Scott at the preliminary injunction stage on 21 August 2025. Nguyen was voluntarily dismissed by its petitioner the following month after an agreement between the parties and never reached a merits decision, a fact recorded in the published opinion in Baltodano v. Bondi, 815 F. Supp. 3d 1191. That does not make the findings wrong, and they have since been adopted on the records of other cases, but anyone relying on this line should know where it begins.

W.D. Wash. November 17, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 225914; 2025 WL 3204369 Third country: No third country designated. South Sudan and Eswatini named in the record as destinations where others in the same position were sent.

A man admitted to the United States in 1989 as the child of a refugee, ordered removed to Vietnam in 2016, and held in immigration detention for nine months and ten days, was ordered released on conditions of supervision. The court found no significant likelihood of removal to Vietnam in the reasonably foreseeable future: the process for obtaining travel documents for immigrants who arrived from Vietnam before 1995 is uncertain and protracted, and the record did not show that the government had submitted a request at all, only that it was having forms translated. The court also held that the detention clock does not restart each time immigration authorities release and then re-detain the same person. The court separately barred removal to any third country without notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond in reopened removal proceedings. It noted that the government had stated in a footnote that under its policy of 9 July 2025 it is "no longer fully following" the process the same court required in Aden v. Nielsen in 2019, and had offered no explanation for the change. On the third question the court held that the government's practice of third-country removal paired with imprisonment is intended to be punitive and therefore violates due process under Wong Wing v. United States (1896) and Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), and ordered that the petitioner not be removed to any third country where he is likely to face imprisonment on arrival. The court adopted the findings made in Nguyen v. Scott, which rested in part on sworn declarations that people removed from the United States to South Sudan and Eswatini have been imprisoned incommunicado since their arrival, and in Eswatini in solitary confinement, and on public statements by government officials describing removal as a punishment. The government did not address the merits of the punitive claim, arguing only that the question was foreclosed by other litigation, which left the court, in its own words, "with no argument from respondents to consider on this topic."

Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country removal Notice Reopened removal proceedings Unconstitutional punishment Wong Wing Incommunicado detention Solitary confinement

Caution A decision of a single district court, binding on nobody but the parties. The court said as much about its own earlier ruling in Aden, which it described as persuasive rather than binding. The punitive holding rests on findings made in a different case, Nguyen v. Scott, which this court adopted rather than re-examined on its own record. It was also reached without argument from the government on the merits, which is a reason to read it closely rather than a defect in it, but it means the reasoning has not been tested against an opposing case. The commercial reporter carried a caution signal on the decision as of September 2026. The Coalition has not located any decision disturbing it, and records the signal rather than interpreting it. The punitive analysis this decision adopts was made in Nguyen v. Scott at the preliminary injunction stage on 21 August 2025. Nguyen was voluntarily dismissed by its petitioner the following month after an agreement between the parties and never reached a merits decision, a fact recorded in the published opinion in Baltodano v. Bondi, 815 F. Supp. 3d 1191. That does not make the findings wrong, and they have since been adopted on the records of other cases, but anyone relying on this line should know where it begins.

N.D. Cal. October 10, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201666; 2025 WL 2899220 Third country: Jordan

Serious questions exist that the petitioner may not be detained without notice and a hearing before an immigration judge, or removed to a third country without notice and an opportunity to apply for fear-based relief.

Redetention Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Jurisdiction 1252(g) Jurisdiction 1252(a)(5) Jurisdiction 1252(b)(9)

Caution Preliminary injunction on a 'serious questions' showing, not a final merits ruling; issued by a magistrate judge, and the file does not state whether the parties consented; the supplied file is named for the July 26, 2025 temporary restraining order but contains the October 10, 2025 order.

S.D. Tex. September 26, 2025 2025 WL 2774610

ICE re-detained the petitioner without a shown lawful revocation, notice of reasons, or the required informal interview, and his removal is not reasonably foreseeable; release was ordered with notice required once a third country is identified.

Redetention Informal interview Notice Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Withholding of removal Third-country designation Jurisdiction 1252(g)

Caution The third-country notice claim was held premature even as summary judgment on it was denied, and no fixed notice period was set; final judgment was to be entered separately and is not in the file; the government produced no copy of any order revoking supervision; the court noted a split on whether the six-month period resets on re-detention.

N.D. Cal. September 19, 2025 2025 WL 2689266

Due process bars re-detaining a noncitizen released after an individualized risk determination, even where detention is mandatory, without notice and a hearing on whether a material change of circumstances justifies re-detention.

Redetention Notice Bond hearing

Caution Preliminary injunction on the 'serious questions' standard, not a final judgment; the printed title reads 'Order Granting Motion for Temporary Restraining Order' although the body grants a preliminary injunction; the decretal paragraph states no forum, deadline, or burden of proof, although the body states a clear and convincing standard.

N.D. Cal. September 18, 2025 2025 WL 2689853

Five noncitizens released under section 1226(a) and arrested at immigration court must be released immediately and may not be re-detained without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker.

Redetention Notice Mandatory detention 1225(b)

Caution Ex parte temporary restraining order issued the same day as the arrests, with the government not heard; the court did not definitively decide whether section 1225(b) or section 1226(a) governs, saying only that it found section 1225(b)(2)(A) 'particularly doubtful'; it expired October 2, 2025 and the file contains no later order.

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.

N.D. Cal. September 15, 2025 Investigating. No reporter citation established. Third country: None identified in the orders read.

Aroldo Alberto Rodriguez Diaz had been released from immigration custody. When the government moved to re-detain him, the court held that he had raised serious questions on his claim that he holds a protected liberty interest in remaining at liberty, that due process therefore entitles him to notice and a hearing before he is taken back into custody, and that the balance of hardships tipped sharply in his favour. A restraining order issued the same day the application was made. A preliminary injunction followed in September.

Redetention Due process Notice Custody hearing Bond hearing Appeal pending

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only, and the only decision in this register currently known to be on appeal. The government has taken it to the Ninth Circuit, No. 25-7196. If that court rules, this entry will be behind the law until it is updated. The orders read do not mention the Convention against Torture, third-country removal, or an Order of Supervision; a secondary research memorandum described this case as involving all three, and it does not.

N.D. Cal. September 12, 2025 2025 WL 2637503

An asylum seeker released on her own recognizance is detained under section 1226(a), not section 1225(b)(2), and due process entitles her to a pre-deprivation bond hearing before any re-arrest.

Redetention Notice Mandatory detention 1225(b) Bond hearing

Caution Preliminary injunction, not a final judgment; substantive due process claims were expressly not reached; the country of origin is printed throughout as 'Columbia'; the decretal language, unlike the earlier temporary restraining order, does not repeat the word 'notice'.

N.D. Cal. September 9, 2025 2025 WL 2615063

Two petitioners released years earlier under a class bail process are likely to succeed on a due process claim that they may not be re-detained without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker.

Redetention Notice

Caution Ex parte temporary restraining order on a preliminary record, with the government not yet heard; it expired September 23, 2025 and the file contains no later order; the order contains no third-country discussion, no protection grant, and no country of proposed removal, and the court did not identify the governing detention statute.

S.D. Fla. September 9, 2025 824 F. Supp. 3d 1243

The revocation itself was authorized under section 241.4(l)(2)(iii), but the check-in desk conversation was not the required informal interview after return to custody, so seventy-five days of detention without a meaningful opportunity to be heard violated due process.

Redetention Informal interview Notice CAT deferral Jurisdiction 1252(g)

Caution Section 241.4 applied rather than section 241.13 because the petitioner never obtained a section 241.13 determination; the court flagged its disagreement with Chavez Barrios v. Ripa, a decision of the same district, on whether section 241.4(l)(1) process attaches to an (l)(2) revocation; the court retained jurisdiction to enforce.

D. Md. September 8, 2025 2025 WL 2592543 Third country: Australia and Romania

Detention is not authorized by section 1231(a)(6) because, with withholding granted as to Iran and no response from Australia or Romania, there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.

Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Withholding of removal Third-country designation Notice Jurisdiction 1252(g)

Caution The six-month Zadvydas presumption was assumed without deciding to apply; the third-country notice claim was stayed because the petitioner is a D.V.D. class member, so the court did not rule on what process is due before a third-country removal; the separate order carrying the decretal terms of release is not in the file.

N.D. Cal. September 6, 2025 2025 WL 2578275

A lawful permanent resident released in 2020 and arrested at his home must be released immediately and may not be re-detained without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker.

Redetention Notice

Caution Ex parte temporary restraining order entered the same day as the arrest, without a government response; it expired September 20, 2025; the order identifies no detention statute, no removal order, and no country of removal, and does not state the petitioner's citizenship, which the September 19, 2025 order in the same case gives as Cambodia.

C.D. Cal. September 3, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171809; 2025 WL 4666804

The revocation notice was not individualized and stated no reasons, and ICE's belief that removal was now possible was no changed circumstance; release was ordered and re-detention or removal barred without notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Redetention Notice Informal interview CAT deferral Third-country designation

Caution Temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on a preliminary record; the Form I-294 account reaches the court through a declaration by the petitioner's brother relaying a telephone call and is the record before the court, not a judicial finding; the brief warns that the 'border on the Kafkaesque' quotation in this order follows an ambiguous 'Id.' and is now traced to Roble v. Bondi at 772.

D. Mass. August 28, 2025 Investigating. No reporter citation established.

Granting the plaintiffs' motion under Rule 62.1, the court stated that it would dissolve its April 18, 2025 preliminary injunction if the First Circuit remanded the appeal for that purpose.

Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Class relief

Caution An interlocutory indicative ruling that does not itself dissolve the injunction; whether the First Circuit remanded, and whether the injunction was later dissolved, is not stated in the file; the disposition fits none of the listed categories, so 'Other' is used.

C.D. Cal. August 28, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168233; 2025 LX 356195

The court set a briefing schedule and enjoined the government from removing the petitioner to Iran or to any third country.

Redetention Third-country designation Notice

Caution The brief describes this order only through its identification of the three decisions in the case and the Form I-294 account it records; it names Walter, D.J. and Bristow, M.J. for the case without attributing this order to either, so the judge field is left empty.

S.D.N.Y. August 26, 2025 798 F. Supp. 3d 400

The government gave no notice of revocation and no interview before re-detaining a man released in 2018, violating its own regulations and due process; release was ordered, and transfer after filing did not defeat jurisdiction.

Redetention Notice Informal interview Jurisdiction 1252(g) Transfer out of district

Caution Granted in part. The court's description of Westley v. Harper as reaching the merits of the section 241.4(l) claim is in tension with the project's earlier note that Westley was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, and the brief directs that neither characterisation be published until the Westley opinion itself is read.

D. Minn. August 25, 2025 803 F. Supp. 3d 766

ICE's notice merely parroted the regulation and gave no individualized reasons for re-detention, and the government bore and failed to carry the burden of showing changed circumstances; release ordered.

Redetention Notice CAT deferral Third-country designation

Caution The court declined a forward-looking injunction against future re-detention and declined class-wide relief because the petitioner had not sued as a class. The brief establishes that the 'border on the Kafkaesque' quotation belongs to this decision at 772 and not to Nouri v. Herrera or Gonzalez v. Noem.

W.D. Wash. August 21, 2025 2025 WL 2419288

The court found the petitioner likely to succeed on his Zadvydas claim and ordered his release, rejected the argument that detention must be consecutive, and found ICE's third-country removal policy likely inconsistent with Ninth Circuit precedent.

Redetention Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country designation Notice

Caution Not read directly; described and quoted in the printouts of Tang v. Bondi, Villanueva v. Tate, and Y.T.D. v. Andrews, and in the D.V.D. indicative ruling. Tang distinguished it. Evidence recited in Tang indicates Vietnam issued a travel document for this petitioner on September 3, 2025, after the order.

N.D. Cal. August 21, 2025 Investigating. No reporter citation established. Third country: Guatemala was the country in dispute, by a determination that he could be removed there.

Juan Edelmar Alva Alva was released on an Order of Supervision on 3 December 2018 and lived under it for nearly seven years. He did not challenge his final order of removal. What was in dispute was a determination that he could be removed to Guatemala. He was re-detained, and a restraining order of 7 August 2025 secured his release. The court then held that a person who has been at liberty on an Order of Supervision for that length of time has a liberty interest in remaining at liberty, and that the government may not re-detain him during the proceedings without first giving him a hearing before an immigration judge to decide whether detention is warranted on grounds of flight risk or danger to the community.

Redetention Order of supervision Due process Bond hearing Custody hearing Third-country designation Notice

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only. The order decides the detention question and does not decide whether he may lawfully be removed to Guatemala. It does not address protection under the Convention against Torture.

E.D. Cal. August 20, 2025 2025 WL 2791778

The re-detention was unlawful because ICE gave no informal interview and showed no changed circumstances making removal to China reasonably foreseeable; release was ordered and re-detention barred without notice and a pre-detention hearing before an immigration judge.

Redetention Informal interview Notice Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Third-country designation Jurisdiction 1252(g)

Caution Temporary restraining order granted in part on a preliminary record, with a preliminary-injunction schedule to follow; the request to enjoin third-country removal was denied without prejudice as not ripe; the order introduces 'five claims' and then lists six, and several regulatory citations are printed irregularly.

N.D. Cal. August 16, 2025 2025 WL 2453968

The court ordered the government to release the petitioner, to refrain from re-detaining her without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker, and to refrain from removing her from the United States.

Redetention Notice

Caution Not read directly; known only from the September 12, 2025 preliminary-injunction order's recital of its terms and from an editorial history note, which lists it under the name 'Aceros v. Kaiser'. Extensions of this order on August 25 and September 4, 2025 are noted in that opinion and are not registered here.

S.D. Fla. August 8, 2025 2025 WL 2280485; 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153228 Third country: Guatemala

The emergency motion was denied: section 241.4(l)(2) required no notice or interview and both were in fact given, the Zadvydas claim was premature, and the regulatory stay barred removal to Mexico only.

Redetention Informal interview Notice Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) CAT deferral Third-country designation Jurisdiction 1252(g) Transfer out of district Bond hearing

Caution The brief records that this decision resolves the project's ledger claim 10 against the version previously carried: the motion was denied, and no appellate stay is supported, only the district court's interim order of June 12, 2025 staying transfer and removal. The decision splits from Grigorian, Zhu, Ceesay and Torres on whether section 241.4(l)(1) process attaches to an (l)(2) revocation, and from Gonzalez v. Noem and Zhu on jurisdiction to restrain a transfer.

N.D. Cal. August 6, 2025 2025 WL 2243616

Serious questions exist that due process bars detention or removal to any third country without notice and an opportunity to present a fear-based claim; sections 1252(g), (a)(5), (b)(9) and FARRA do not bar review.

Redetention Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Jurisdiction 1252(g) Jurisdiction 1252(a)(5) Jurisdiction 1252(b)(9)

Caution Preliminary injunction on the 'serious questions' standard, converted from a temporary restraining order by consent; every merits finding is framed as a serious question and none is final; no third country is identified anywhere in the file, and the court did not identify the governing detention statute by number.

N.D. Cal. July 26, 2025 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143161 Third country: Jordan

The court granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the government from re-detaining the petitioner without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker.

Redetention Notice

Caution Not read directly; known only through the October 10, 2025 order, which quotes a single phrase from it and records that it was granted by 'the duty judge' and that the parties stipulated it would remain in effect pending the later ruling.

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.

N.D. Cal. July 14, 2025 2025 WL 1940179

A man released on bond in 2013 and detained at a scheduled ICE interview must be released immediately and may not be re-detained without notice and a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker.

Redetention Notice Transfer out of district

Caution Ex parte temporary restraining order on a preliminary record, with the government not heard; it expired July 25, 2025 and the file contains no later order; the decretal language contains no removal bar and omits the transfer bar the petitioner requested in the alternative; the nature of the 2019 conviction is not in the record.

U.S. July 3, 2025 606 U.S. ___ (2025); 145 S. Ct. 2627

After the Supreme Court stayed the April 18, 2025 preliminary injunction, the district court held that its May 21, 2025 remedial order, which directed procedures for six class members already removed in violation of the injunction, remained in full force. On the government's motion the Supreme Court held otherwise: “The motion for clarification is granted. Our June 23 order stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction in full. The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable.”

Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Class relief Remedy

Caution Justice Kagan concurred, having voted against the stay: “I voted to deny the Government's previous stay application in this case, and I continue to believe that this Court should not have stayed the District Court's April 18 order enjoining the Government from deporting non-citizens to third countries without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard. But a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.” Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justice Jackson. This order resolves what an earlier register entry recorded as an unregistered further opinion at 145 S. Ct. 2627.

N.D. Cal. June 26, 2025 2025 WL 1771438

The court granted a temporary restraining order against arrest, detention, and third-country removal without notice and a hearing, while giving the government an opportunity for further briefing and a hearing.

Redetention Notice Third-country designation

Caution Not read directly; known from the recital in the August 6, 2025 preliminary-injunction order in the same case and from a parenthetical description in the Nguyen v. Scott printout. It ran until July 10, 2025, was extended by stipulation, and was superseded by the August 6 injunction.

U.S. June 26, 2025 606 U.S. 259 (2025) Third country: None identified in the opinion. The final administrative removal order of 26 January 2021 directed removal to Jamaica.

Pierre Riley, a citizen of Jamaica, was processed for removal under the streamlined procedure for people convicted of aggravated felonies. On 26 January 2021 the Department of Homeland Security issued a final administrative removal order directing his removal to Jamaica. He did not contest removal from the United States but sought protection under the Convention Against Torture, telling an immigration officer that a Jamaican drug kingpin who had killed two of his cousins would likely kill him if he was returned. An immigration judge found him credible and granted deferral of removal to Jamaica. The Board of Immigration Appeals vacated that grant on 31 May 2022, and he filed a petition for review three days later. The Fourth Circuit dismissed the petition as filed too late, treating the 30-day deadline as running from the 2021 order and as jurisdictional. The Supreme Court vacated that judgment. On the first question it held “that a BIA order in a withholding-only proceeding is not a ‘final order of removal,’ and therefore the 30-day filing deadline cannot be satisfied by filing a petition for review within 30 days of the BIA’s withholding-only order.” Relying on Nasrallah v. Barr and Johnson v. Guzman Chavez, it stated: “An order denying relief under the CAT is not a final order of removal and does not affect the validity of a previously issued order of removal or render that order non-final.” On the second question it held “that the 30-day filing deadline is not jurisdictional.” Because the government did not press the deadline, the Court wrote, “it does not preclude this case from proceeding on remand.” Answering the government’s concern that people might lose review of a later denial of protection, the Court said that “the Government can inform aliens of the need to file a petition within 30 days after the issuance of a FARO, and it can alert the court of appeals to the pendency of a withholding-only proceeding so that review there can wait until that issue is decided.” Justice Thomas, concurring, wrote that “the Fourth Circuit may nevertheless lack jurisdiction over this suit for a different reason,” because Riley sought review only of the order on his claim under the Convention and not of a final order of removal. Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in part for four Justices, wrote: “One should not be required to appeal an order before it exists.” In Part IV, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, she added that “the Government is obligated by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to provide noncitizens with adequate notice about the need for an immediate appeal to preserve the right to judicial review of CAT claims.”

CAT deferral Withholding-only proceedings Petition for review Judicial review Jurisdiction Notice

Caution The Court did not decide whether Riley is entitled to protection under the Convention. It decided only which order starts the 30-day period for a petition for review and that the period is not jurisdictional, and it returned the case to the Fourth Circuit, where Justice Thomas flagged a separate jurisdictional question. The holding on finality (Part II-A) was joined by five Justices and opposed by four; the holding that the deadline is not jurisdictional (Part II-B) was joined by all nine. Riley faced removal to his country of nationality, not to a third country. The text read is the preliminary print of volume 606, which the Reporter of Decisions states is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. The statement on notice in Part IV of the partial dissent is not part of the opinion of the Court.

U.S. June 23, 2025 606 U.S. ___ (2025); 145 S. Ct. 2153

On the government's application, the Supreme Court stayed the district court's classwide preliminary injunction pending appeal, removing the protection the class had been granted below. The order gives no reasons: “The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted. The April 18, 2025, preliminary injunction of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 25-cv-10676, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought.”

Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Class relief

Caution Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson. The stay terminates automatically if certiorari is denied, and on the sending down of the judgment if it is granted. A further order of 3 July 2025 on the government's motion for clarification is registered separately.

D. Mass. May 23, 2025 784 F. Supp. 3d 401 Third country: Mexico, which then removed him onward to Guatemala

An immigration judge granted O.C.G. withholding of removal to Guatemala, his home country, after finding it more likely than not that he would suffer serious harm there. The court sets out what happened next: “Two days later, and without any notice, O.C.G. was placed on a bus and sent to Mexico, a country where he was previously held for ransom and raped.” And then: “As a result, O.C.G. was given up to Mexico, which then sent him back to Guatemala, where he remains in hiding today.” The government had filed a declaration, made under oath, stating that O.C.G. said before removal that he had no fear of Mexico. The court records that on 16 May 2025 the government “acknowledged an ‘error’ in their previous filings and statements to the Court.” Finding a likelihood of success on the due process claim, and rejecting the government’s argument under 8 U.S.C. 1252(g) on the ground that “Defendants’ gestalt argument cannot supersede the plain text of the statute as interpreted by authority binding on this Court,” the court ordered the government “to take all immediate steps, including coordinating with Plaintiffs’ counsel, to facilitate the return of O.C.G. to the United States.” The same order records what had been said in the immigration court: “During the withholding-only proceedings, O.C.G. asked if he might be sent to Mexico—because he was afraid of being sent to Mexico—and the immigration judge told him, ‘we cannot send you back to Mexico, sir, because you’re a native of Guatemala.’ ... At the close of that hearing, the government’s attorney clarified with the immigration judge that, because Guatemala was the country of removal designated on O.C.G.’s order of removal, that was the only relevant country for purposes of the withholding-only proceedings, and the immigration judge agreed.” (784 F. Supp. 3d at 407, as quoted in the judgment of 25 February 2026.)

Third-country designation Notice Withholding of removal Chain refoulement Onward transfer Due process Jurisdiction Remedy

Caution A preliminary injunction, not a final judgment, and it concerns one named plaintiff rather than the certified class. It is separate from the April 18, 2025 classwide injunction that the Supreme Court stayed on June 23, 2025, and separate from the February 25, 2026 judgment now on appeal as First Circuit No. 26-1212. The government did not resist this order. Five days later it reported that a Significant Public Benefit Parole packet had been approved and that ICE Air was working to bring him back. He was returned. The court recorded in its judgment of 25 February 2026 that it ordered his return, “which the Government later facilitated,” and the plaintiffs stated that he “has been returned [to the United States] and released.”

D. Mass. April 18, 2025 778 F. Supp. 3d 355; 2025 WL 1142968

The court certified a class and preliminarily enjoined the government from removing class members to third countries without notice and a meaningful opportunity to seek relief under the Convention Against Torture.

Notice Third-country designation CAT deferral Class relief

Caution Not read directly; described in later opinions. The injunction was stayed by the Supreme Court on June 23, 2025, and on August 28, 2025 the issuing court stated it would dissolve it if the First Circuit remanded. The briefs do not name the judge for this order and do not print the class definition in full.

W.D. Wash. December 6, 2019 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210865; 2019 WL 6683512 Third country: Somalia

The government's position was not substantially justified, and the court awarded $36,720 in fees and $2,170 in expenses at $450 per hour under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

Attorney fees Notice Third-country designation

Caution Fees were denied for the unsuccessful motion-to-enforce phase. The brief notes that a Fifth Circuit decision cited elsewhere in the collection holds the Act does not authorize fees for successful section 2241 motions, so fee recovery depends on the circuit.

W.D. Wash. June 20, 2019 409 F. Supp. 3d 998; 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103569; 2019 WL 2548137 Third country: Somalia

DHS may designate a removal country outside removal proceedings, but designating Somalia without notice or an opportunity to be heard violated due process, so proceedings must be reopened before any removal there.

Redetention Notice Third-country designation Withholding of removal CAT deferral Jurisdiction 1252(a)(5) Bond hearing Prolonged detention (Zadvydas)

Caution The four-step notice procedure often attributed to this case comes from subsection D of the magistrate judge's report, which the district judge did not adopt; the court's statement that failing to advise of the right to apply for asylum or withholding is itself a due process violation is hedged as what Ninth Circuit case law 'suggests'; the court held detention was not indefinite under Zadvydas and granted only a bond hearing on that score. Any account presenting the case as forbidding administrative designation misstates it.

W.D. Wash. January 23, 2019 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 200381; 2019 WL 5790904 Third country: Somalia

The magistrate judge recommended relief and set out four procedural requirements DHS must satisfy before removing a person to an undesignated country.

Redetention Notice Third-country designation Withholding of removal

Caution This is a report and recommendation, not a decision of the court, and it was adopted only in part: the district judge adopted the Background section and subsections A, B, C and F, and did not adopt subsection D, which contains the four-step procedure, or subsection E. The report's statement that DHS has failed to notify other noncitizens before removing them to undesignated countries, and its description of the facts as 'alarming to say the least', are the magistrate judge's characterisations in an unadopted portion.

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.

9th Cir. June 11, 1999 180 F.3d 1033 Third country: Armenia

Denying asylum on firm resettlement in Armenia, a country added as an alternative destination after the evidence closed, was error, because the regulation permits denial only where a third country has offered resettlement without harm or persecution.

Notice Third-country designation Withholding of removal

Caution The frequently quoted notice passage at 1041 addressed a point the INS had conceded and was not the dispositive ground; the court decided the case on 8 C.F.R. section 208.13(d) (1999). The brief corrects the year: this decision is 1999, not 2000. That regulation has since been replaced, and the text now printed at 8 C.F.R. 208.13(d) and 1208.13(d) must not be quoted as the rule this decision applied. In 1999 the provision read: “An asylum application may be denied in the discretion of the Attorney General if the alien can be removed to a third country which has offered resettlement and in which the alien would not face harm or persecution.” The phrase “offered resettlement” appears nowhere in either section today, checked against the Code of Federal Regulations on 14 September 2026. The present paragraph (d) is a different provision listing adverse discretionary factors, introduced by the rule published at 85 FR 80274 on 11 December 2020. The government recorded at 86 FR 15069 that on 8 January 2021, in Pangea Legal Services v. Department of Homeland Security, a district court preliminarily enjoined the departments “from implementing, enforcing, or applying the [Global Asylum final] rule . . . or any related policies or procedures.” The Department of Homeland Security ratified the rule at 90 FR 51989 on 19 November 2025, in a notice that does not mention the injunction. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies reports that the injunction remains in place and the case is administratively closed; the Coalition has not confirmed that from the court record. The Code of Federal Regulations carries no note of any of this.

7th Cir. January 5, 1998 132 F.3d 405 Third country: Russia

At the outset of a one-day hearing, at the request of the government, the immigration judge designated Russia as Mrs. Kossov’s country of deportation and Latvia as Mr. Kossov’s. The hearing and the asylum application concerned Latvia. The judge granted voluntary departure and, in the alternative, ordered them both deported to Russia. The Court of Appeals vacated the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and remanded, concluding that the immigration judge had committed errors that severely prejudiced the couple’s ability to present their claim for asylum. The error was the absence of notice: “The IJ never informed the Kossovs, who at the time were without counsel, that they had the right to seek asylum here and introduce evidence specifically directed against deportability to Russia.” The court cited the regulation then in force, 8 C.F.R. 242.17(c)(2), as “providing that immigration judge must advise alien of right to apply for asylum or withholding of deportation with respect to any country specified as a possible deportation site, provided alien ‘expresses fear of persecution or harm upon return to’ such country”. It rejected the argument that designating the country at the start of the hearing was notice enough. That argument “fails miserably”, because the couple appeared without counsel and “It is too much to expect that they should have the expertise to adapt instantaneously to such an unexpected turn of events”. The couple had not raised the point before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which ordinarily forfeits it. The court held that it could reach the issue anyway: “What this Court is in effect asked to review is an order deporting the Kossovs to Russia in the absence of a fair hearing concerning that deportation. The BIA should have recognized sua sponte such a fundamental failure of due process during its consideration of the Kossovs’ challenge to the deportation order.”

Notice Third-country designation Due process Self-represented petitioner Jurisdiction Remand to the BIA

Caution A deportation case decided under the rules in force before the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, so its statutory and regulatory references are to provisions that have since been renumbered. The regulation it relied on, 8 C.F.R. 242.17(c)(2), has a successor at 8 C.F.R. 1240.11(c)(1), and the trigger phrase the court placed inside its own quotation marks, “expresses fear of persecution or harm upon return to”, appears in the rule in force today word for word. The Coalition has compared the court’s quotation with the current rule; it has not obtained the 1997 printing of the older one. The reported text is taken from a scanned reporter volume and carries line-break hyphens inside words. The reported decision also includes a separate concurring opinion, which the Coalition has not read.