Decisions

C.D. Cal. August 24, 2026

Accepting the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the United States Magistrate Judge after de novo review of the portions to which the government objected, the court granted the petition. It ordered that Respondents are “ENJOINED from re-detaining Petitioner under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) unless his re-detention is ordered at a custody hearing before a neutral arbiter in which the government bears the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that Petitioner is a flight risk or danger to the community.” Judgment was entered the same day in favour of the petitioner.

Order of supervision Revocation Redetention Custody hearing Burden of proof

Caution An unreported district court order. The reasoning is in the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation, which the Coalition has not obtained; this order adopts it without restating it. Note also that the injunction is framed in terms of 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), whereas the February 2026 preliminary injunction in the same case turned on 8 C.F.R. § 241.13(i); the file does not explain the shift.

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.

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.

D. Mass. February 6, 2026

A Rwandan citizen was ordered removed on 26 March 2025, but the immigration judge “also found that Petitioner’s life or freedom would be threatened should he be returned to Rwanda and restricted his removal, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3).” The court records what happened next: “Subsequently, ICE attempted to remove Petitioner to several ‘third countries,’ none of which would accept him.” After more than ten months beyond the effective date of the removal order, and more than a year in detention overall, the court granted the writ, finding the petitioner had shown no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future under Zadvydas v. Davis and that “Respondents have failed to respond with any contrary evidence.” It ordered him transported to Maine and released on an order of supervision under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(a)(3) and (6), and declined to set limits on the conditions of release.

Withholding of removal Third-country designation Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Order of supervision

Caution An unreported district court order on detention, not on the lawfulness of any removal. The order records a misdemeanor conviction and pending state proceedings, which are not summarised here. Respondents conceded the issues resembled those in Siguenza v. Moniz, 2025 WL 2734704 (D. Mass. 25 Sept. 2025), which the Coalition has not read. The docket shows an emergency motion to amend the petition and an order to show cause in April 2026, so the matter did not end with this order; what followed has not been established.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. 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.

W.D. Mo. March 22, 2018 Unreported; order at ECF No. 20 Third country: None (removal to country of origin)

The court denied the government’s motion to dismiss and granted the habeas petition, ordering immediate release and directing that “Petitioner’s conditions of his order of supervision which were in effect before his detention are reinstated immediately.” The court held it had no authority to examine ICE’s decision to issue or to execute the removal order, but did have jurisdiction over the request for release from detention pending removal. Applying Zadvydas v. Davis to a case where removal was reasonably foreseeable, it weighed the statutory factors and found detention not reasonably necessary to secure removal: “Most notable, is the fact that Petitioner was released on an Order of Supervision in 2012 and has for the past 6 years adhered regularly to the conditions placed upon him.” It added that he had no criminal history and strong family and community ties.

Detention pending removal Prolonged detention (Zadvydas) Section 1231(a)(6) Order of supervision Redetention Reinstatement of supervision conditions Habeas jurisdiction

Caution It is an unreported district court order, not binding on any other court. The petitioner held no withholding of removal and no protection under the Convention Against Torture, and no third country was involved; removal was to his country of citizenship. The legal basis is Zadvydas and 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6), not the post-order custody review regulations at 8 C.F.R. §§ 241.4 and 241.13. What the order records is a court treating years of compliance with an order of supervision as a reason against redetention, and restoring the supervision conditions that redetention had displaced. A docket number of 5:18-cv-06099 sometimes attached to this case in secondary sources is wrong; that number belongs to an unrelated case.

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.