Jun B.X. v. Shikha Dosanj

Summary

The United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i granted Jun B.X.’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, concluding that his nearly eleven-month immigration detention was unlawfully prolonged under Zadvydas v. Davis. The court found no factual or legal distinction from its prior decisions in Malik v. Dosanj and Vu v. Dosanj and ordered his immediate release under the conditions of his existing supervision order. The court directed the parties to file a status report confirming release and ordered the case closed.

Holdings

1. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6), detention after the statutory removal period is limited to the period reasonably necessary to effectuate removal; once removal is no longer reasonably foreseeable, continued detention is not authorized. Because Petitioner’s nearly eleven-month detention was presumptively unreasonable and the government did not rebut the showing that removal was not significantly likely in the reasonably foreseeable future, the detention was unlawful.
2. The court declined to resolve the remaining counts because granting relief on Count I made resolution of those counts unnecessary.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Petitioner’s detention pending execution of a removal order had become unlawfully prolonged under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6) and Zadvydas v. Davis.
2. Whether the government rebutted Petitioner’s showing that there was no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.
3. Whether the court should resolve the remaining counts of the habeas petition.

Disposition

writ_granted