Carmen G.C. v. Timothy S. Robbins, Field Office Director of the Los Angeles Field Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Todd Lyons, Acting Director of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement; U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Kristi Noem, Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security; Christopher Chestnut, Administrator of California City Detention Facility; and Pamela Bondi, Attorney General of the United States

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California grants petitioner Carmen G.C.’s motion for a preliminary injunction, converted from a motion for temporary restraining order. The court holds that petitioner is likely to succeed on her claim that her re-detention without a bond hearing violated procedural due process, based on her prior release under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) and resulting protected liberty interest. The court concludes that she is entitled to a bond hearing at which the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that she presents a flight risk or danger to the community.

Holdings

1. The entry-fiction doctrine did not foreclose petitioner's procedural due process challenge to her re-detention because the government had treated her as already present in the United States by detaining and releasing her under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), and the cited entry-fiction cases primarily concerned admission rather than detention.
2. Petitioner possessed a protected liberty interest in her continued release.
3. Before re-detaining petitioner, the government was required to provide a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral decisionmaker at which it must prove by clear and convincing evidence that petitioner is a flight risk or danger to the community.
4. Petitioner satisfied the preliminary-injunction requirements because she was likely to succeed on her procedural due process claim, faced irreparable constitutional injury, and the balance of equities and public interest favored relief.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the entry-fiction doctrine deprived petitioner of procedural due process rights concerning her immigration detention.
2. Whether petitioner's release under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), followed by more than three years at liberty, created a protected liberty interest in continued release.
3. Whether the Fifth Amendment required a pre-deprivation bond hearing before the government could re-detain petitioner.
4. Whether petitioner satisfied the requirements for a preliminary injunction.

Disposition

other