Court
10th Cir.
Decided
October 21, 2026
Docket
No. 25-3179 (Doc. 50)
Citation
Investigating. Published opinion; no reporter citation established yet.
Judge
Opinion by Circuit Judge McHugh, joined by Circuit Judge Phillips. Circuit Judge Eid dissented.
Outcome
Relief granted in part
Disposition
Government's motion to dismiss the appeal as moot denied. Denial of an injunction against transfer to another facility affirmed; denial of an injunction against removal from the United States reversed and remanded. Denial of declaratory and habeas relief reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Nationality
Citizen of Iran. Entered the United States in 1991 at the age of ten; his family was granted asylum. Ordered removed after a single drug possession conviction, and granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture on 30 September 2002. Released on an order of supervision and complied with it for more than twenty years.
Third country
The notice revoking his release stated that “[r]emoval to a country other than Iran is now a possibility.” The dissent records that, according to the district court in his second habeas case, immigration officials “were unable to remove petitioner to [Turkey or the United Arab Emirates],” the only third countries identified in the litigation.
The petitioner was re-detained on 23 June 2025 after more than twenty years of compliance with an order of supervision, and held until 25 February 2026. The government did not dispute that he received no informal interview for at least six months.
Mootness. The appeal was not moot after his release, because the wrong is capable of repetition yet evading review: “Given the nature of a removal order, Mr. Abedi cannot avoid recurrence of his claimed injury through good conduct” (p. 19). The court relied on the government’s litigation position and its “demonstrated pattern” of re-detaining people released on habeas (p. 23).
Stay of removal. The district court applied the wrong standard in requiring that the right be “indisputably clear”; the test is whether an order is necessary or appropriate in aid of the court’s jurisdiction. As guidance on remand: “§ 1252 is not implicated by a request for a temporary injunction to stay a detainee’s removal during the pendency of a habeas proceeding challenging the legality of the detention without contesting the underlying removal order” (p. 34).
Revocation. A release granted because removal was unlikely is governed by 8 C.F.R. 241.13; his release “could only have been legally authorized under § 241.13” (p. 42), and “the government cannot move a noncitizen from the § 241.13 category to the § 241.4 category without first following the process set forth in § 241.13(i)” (p. 41). Reading “promptly” with County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, without adopting a 48-hour rule, the court held that the time that elapsed “easily establishes that the Government did not promptly conduct Mr. Abedi’s interview” (p. 50). The violation was prejudicial per se under Accardi, and in any event “[t]he lack of process was itself an injury” (p. 58); habeas did not cure it.
Zadvydas. “Zadvydas’s six-month presumption applies only to the first six months that elapse after the removal period is triggered” (p. 64); “[t]he government is simply no longer entitled to a presumption of reasonableness for any detention that occurs outside of the initial six-month period following the removal order becoming final” (p. 69). Remanded for a case-specific analysis without the benefit of any presumption.
Caution
Binding only in the Tenth Circuit (Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming). Judge Eid dissented on mootness and did not reach the merits (p. 73 n.2). The court did not decide whether a release under 8 C.F.R. 241.4 carries the same right to an interview (p. 43 n.10), did not fix a deadline for “promptly”, did not itself order a stay of removal, and did not decide whether removal to a third country is lawful. District courts elsewhere are divided on whether re-detention restarts the six-month period. The government may seek rehearing en banc or certiorari. Footnote 4 notes that an interview may have taken place in January 2026; the court found the result the same either way.
CAT deferral
Redetention
Revocation of supervision
Order of supervision
Informal interview
Notice
Compliance with regulations
Prolonged detention (Zadvydas)
Third-country removal
Jurisdiction
Section 1252(a)(5)
Due process
Mootness
The court's own text
Public copy
Copy held by the Coalition
Read in full from the court’s copy of the published opinion (Doc. 50), filed 21 October 2026; quotations checked against the text, 24 October 2026.
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