Decisions

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.

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Caution Unpublished slip copy.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.

M.D. Fla. July 14, 2026 Slip Copy; 2026 WL 2034638 Third country: Eswatini

The court found a likelihood of success on the procedural due process claim where the plaintiff’s scheduled reasonable fear interview was cancelled, the defendants declined to reschedule it, and he was being prepared for transport to Eswatini, a country where he had submitted evidence that as a gay man he faced a risk of persecution. It restrained any step toward removing him to Eswatini until further order.

Third-country designation Reasonable fear CAT Due process Withholding of removal

Caution Unpublished slip copy. An ex parte temporary restraining order, granted in part and deferred in part: the request to compel a reasonable fear interview was deferred to a preliminary injunction hearing set for 20 July 2026, whose outcome is not in this document. The allegations of the verified complaint were taken as true for the purposes of the order. A parallel habeas proceeding exists in which an order requiring release is described as now vacated.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

E.D. Cal. 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.

D. Md. October 24, 2025 Investigating. No reporter citation established. Third country: United Kingdom

Because the government produced no evidence of any step taken to effectuate removal to the United Kingdom or anywhere else, there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future and the writ issues.

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

Caution The earlier September 19, 2025 opinion in the same case, which held the court had jurisdiction and denied relief at that time, is not in the file; this order does not bar removal and does not address what process is due before a third-country removal; no reporter or unofficial citation is printed for this document; the supplied file name carries the date 20251025 although the document is dated October 24, 2025.

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.

D. Md. September 19, 2025 2025 WL 2687354 Third country: United Kingdom

The court held that it had jurisdiction, that the petitioner had not yet carried his burden to show a Zadvydas violation, and ordered the government to produce information about efforts to effectuate his removal.

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

Caution Not read directly; known only as summarised in the October 24, 2025 opinion in the same case, which later granted the writ. The brief does not separately name the judge for this order, describing it as 'this Court's' prior opinion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D. 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.

9th Cir. August 27, 2025 Investigating. A secondary source gives 154 F.4th 989; CourtListener holds the opinion with no reporter citation attached. Third country: Mexico. He held withholding of removal to Cuba. Mexico was never designated as a country of removal in his proceedings.

Jorge Felix Ibarra-Perez was granted withholding of removal to Cuba by an immigration judge. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed him instead to Mexico, a country that had never been designated in his removal proceedings. He objected repeatedly. After two days in Mexico he returned to the United States and sued the federal government for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act, for false imprisonment, negligence, abuse of process and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court held that 8 U.S.C. 1252(g), which bars review of decisions to commence proceedings, adjudicate cases or execute removal orders, stripped it of jurisdiction, and dismissed. The Court of Appeals reversed and sent the case back. It read 1252(g) narrowly, as the Supreme Court has directed, and held that removing a person to a country his removal order does not name is not the execution of that order. The panel wrote that the government’s reading would "entirely insulate from judicial review any post-hearing decision by ICE to remove noncitizens to third countries where they would be in danger of persecution, torture, and even death." The panel also recorded that withholding of removal is country specific, so that ICE retained authority to remove him to another country authorised by statute. The decision opens the courthouse door. It does not decide whether what was done to him was lawful.

Third-country removal Withholding of removal Country-specific nature of withholding Jurisdiction Judicial review Federal Tort Claims Act Damages ICE policy of 9 July 2025

Caution This is a decision about jurisdiction, not about the merits. The court held only that the case may be heard, and returned it to the district court. Nothing here holds that the removal was unlawful. It is also a damages suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act rather than a habeas petition or a petition for review, so the route it opens is a claim for compensation after the event, not a way of stopping a removal before it happens. The panel divided two to one, Judge R. Nelson dissenting. Rehearing before the full court was refused on 25 June 2026, but thirteen judges recorded their disagreement: Judge Bea, joined by Judges O’Scannlain, Callahan, Bennett, R. Nelson, Bade, Collins, Lee, Bress, Bumatay, VanDyke and Tung, wrote that the panel had nullified the statute. A decision carried by one vote and opposed by thirteen judges of the same court is not settled ground. It binds the Ninth Circuit and nowhere else.

N.D. Cal. August 22, 2025 Investigating. No reporter citation established. Third country: Not in issue. A full-text search of the decision returns no occurrence of the phrase.

Carolina Ortiz Calderon had applied for asylum, for withholding of removal and for protection under the Convention against Torture, and had been released on her own recognisance. On her re-detention the court held, in its own words, that the government "may not re-detain Ortiz Calderon during the pendency of the proceedings before this Court without providing her with a pre-detention bond hearing before a neutral immigration judge", and that detention requires clear and convincing evidence of flight risk or danger together with a showing that no lesser conditions would suffice.

Redetention Due process Bond hearing Custody hearing Asylum Withholding of removal CAT

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only. Her protection claims are recorded in the order as background. What was decided is the detention question alone. There is no holding here about removal to a third country and the phrase does not appear in the decision.

N.D. Cal. July 17, 2025 Investigating. No reporter citation established. Third country: Not in issue. No third country appears in this decision.

The petitioner holds a final administrative order of removal and has proceedings on withholding of removal and protection under the Convention against Torture on foot. What the court decided was narrower than that background suggests. It enjoined and restrained the government from re-detaining him without notice and a hearing before an immigration judge, held before he is taken into custody, to evaluate whether re-detention is warranted on grounds of flight risk or danger to the community.

Redetention Due process Bond hearing Custody hearing Withholding of removal CAT

Caution A district court decision, binding on the parties only. The petitioner’s protection claims form the background to the case and are not what was decided. There is no holding here about removal to a third country. The case appears on the public docket under the petitioner’s full name, Reyes v. Kaiser; the anonymised form used here is the one the court uses in the caption of its own order.

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.”

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.

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.