Bertila Jacqueline Aigaje-Ascanta v. Pamela Bondi, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky denied Bertila Jacqueline Aigaje-Ascanta’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging her immigration detention and seeking release or a bond hearing. The court held that the Immigration Judge’s alternative finding that Aigaje-Ascanta was a flight risk was a discretionary bond decision beyond federal-court review under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e), and directed the docket to substitute Markwayne Mullin for Kristi Noem as a respondent.

Holdings

1. 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e) bars federal-court review of an immigration judge's discretionary decision regarding detention, release, or the grant or denial of bond. Because Aigaje-Ascanta challenged the immigration judge's discretionary denial of bond, the district court lacked jurisdiction to review that decision.
2. An immigration judge's alternative finding that a petitioner presents a flight risk supplies an independent basis for denying release and remains a discretionary decision even when the judge also concluded that the immigration court lacked authority to hear the bond request.
3. The petition did not present a reviewable challenge to the INA's detention framework as a whole; it challenged the immigration judge's particular discretionary decision to deny bond.

Questions Presented

1. Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e) deprived the district court of jurisdiction to review the immigration judge's discretionary denial of bond.
2. Whether an immigration judge's alternative finding that the petitioner was a flight risk supplied an independent basis for detention despite the judge's separate conclusion that the immigration court lacked authority to consider bond.
3. Whether the petitioner's challenge concerned the statutory detention framework as a whole, which remains reviewable, or instead challenged a particular discretionary bond decision.

Disposition

denied